Australian Government Economic Response to the Coronavirus
The Federal government today announced a number of strategies to deal with the economic impact of the Coronavirus. The package consisted of support for business investment, cash flow assistance for businesses, stimulus payments to households to support growth and assistance for severely affected regions.
Business Investment
The two business investment measures in this package are designed to assist Australian businesses and economic growth in the short-term, and encourage a stronger economic recovery following the Coronavirus outbreak. Increasing the instant write-off threshold from $30,000 to $150,000 for all businesses with aggregated turnover of less than $500 million (previously $50 million) until June 30 2020. Refer to fact sheet for more detail https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-03/Fact_sheet-Support_for_business_investment.pdf
Cash flow
This assistance will support businesses to manage cash flow challenges and help businesses retain their employees. To be eligible the business must have aggregated annual turnover of less than $50 million and employ staff. The payment will be tax free. The payments will be delivered as a credit in the activity statement system.
Also, the Federal Government will support small business to retain their apprentices and trainees. Employers can apply for a wage subsidy of 50% of the apprentice’s or trainee’s wage paid during the 9 months from 1 January 2020 to 30 September 2020. The subsidy will be up to $21,000. Refer to fact sheet for more detail.
Refer to the following fact sheet for more detail. https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-03/Fact_sheet-Assistance_for_businesses.pdf
Household support
One-off payments of $750 will be paid to lower-income Australians, including pensioners, other social security and veteran income support recipients and eligible concession card holders. The one-off payment will be paid from 31 March 2020.
Refer to the following fact sheet for more detail https://treasury.gov.au/coronavirus/households
Severely affected regions
$1 billion has been set aside to support regions disproportionately affected. Refer to fact sheet for more detail https://treasury.gov.au/coronavirus/sectors-and-regions
