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It comes after the eleventh-hour passage of a bill that raised the threshold from $1,000 to $20,000 for FY24 last week.
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$20k instant asset write-off passes lower house
01 July 2024
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A 12-month extension to the $20,000 instant asset write-off scheme has passed the lower house.
The scheme was the government’s chief small business support measure in May’s federal budget.
If legislated, nearly 4 million small businesses with an annual turnover under $10 million will be able to claim tax deductions on new assets through to June 2025.
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It comes just days after the bill increasing the write-off threshold from $1,000 – its default threshold every year – to $20,000 passed Parliament, more than a year since it was first announced.
It means businesses hoping to take advantage of the tax break for FY2024 only have days before it expires on 30 June.
Small business advocates have slammed the bill’s delayed passage and called out Parliament for its “political squabbling” after the House of Representatives and Senate disagreed for months over the threshold and size of businesses to which it should apply.
“The small business community is cranky and exasperated about the incredibly slow way these measures have progressed,” the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson said last week.
“It is not fine for political squabbling to run down the clock so there is no realistic prospect a small business can have the certainty to provision for and spend this money with confidence the tax deduction is real.”
Billson also called for safeguards to prevent future delays. “Laws with a time deadline should come with a minimum implementation period,” he said.
“We would suggest no less than six months from royal assent until the time a scheme ends.”
“Small businesses need to be able to trust Parliament to give them enough time to understand changes and with certainty factor them into their planning.”
The 2024–25 instant asset write-off extension passed as part of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Responsible Buy Now Pay Later and Other Measures) Bill 2024.
The Senate will now wait for the Economics Legislation Committee tasked with examining the measure to report back in August.
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