COSBOA today expressed deep concern over the call by Labor’s left to remove all tax cuts for small business if they win government at the next election, as reported in recent media.
Peter Strong, CEO of COSBOA, stated today “businesses cannot plan with confidence if they are not sure what the tax rules will be in twelve months time. These tax cuts are about employment, businesses have been able to plan to employ more people or have the confidence to make casual staff permanent or part time employees full time. Unless Labor can come out and guarantee the tax cuts will remain then confidence in employing will drop.”
Mr Strong continued “we have previously expressed concern about political parties playing games with the tax system. In the first Hockey budget in 2013 the government back dated tax changes for small business and we rightfully expressed deep concern about that type of practice, it did not engender confidence from our sector. While the next few Hockey budgets were very good for small business it is a lesson that should not be forgotten by the Labor left.”
COSBOA believes that the whole tax system needs to be reviewed and that in particular the GST and its rate and application needs to be discussed. There is an opportunity to make the tax system fairer and productive rather than one that is confusing and impedes growth.
Mr Strong added ‘the Australian economy is in good condition and we need to keep it that way, our high wages and relatively low employment rate are under threat if we create uncertainty for the great group of employers and innovators who are the small business community. The left wing of the Labor Party need to stop trying to stop change and actually work with it, otherwise there will be more poor people in Australia, which may just suit there need?”
“Any discussion about removing the already legislated tax cuts for small business is am slap in the face for all small business owners ”, said Mr Strong.
“We call on Mr Shorten to immediately rule out any retrospective roll back of the tax cuts that have already been put in place for small businesses earning less than $50M per year”, said Mr Strong.
To not immediately do so would be to put the interests of big business ahead of the more than 7.5M everyday Australians who make a living by working in small business” Mr Strong said.
