On 6 May 2015, the Honourable Joe Hockey with the Honourable Bruce Billson disseminated a media release on Supporting start-ups and entrepreneurship. 

The media release announces new measures which will apply to small business and start-ups proposed to take effect from 1 July 2016.  These new measures will provide much needed relief for small business and start-ups and are another step towards ensuring that Australia provides the right environment for small business, start-ups and entrepreneurs.

The proposed new measures include:

• The ability for “new start-ups to immediately deduct professional costs associated with starting a business rather than writing them off over five years. The meaning of “new start-ups” is not expanded in the media release.  It will therefore be a case of waiting to see how this term is to be defined, including whether the thresholds in Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (Employee Share Schemes) Bill 2015, which relates to proposed changes to the employees share scheme which were intended to apply to start-ups, will apply;
• Business registration will be streamlined with a single online registration site;
• “Small business owners” will be able to change the legal structure of their business without incurring a capital gains tax liability. No guidance is included in the media release in relation to the meaning of “small business owners”;
• Removal of obstacles to crowd-sourced equity funding for the purposes of making it easier for small business to access the capital they need to grow.  Whilst there is little detail regarding how this change will operate or the meaning of “small business”, the media release notes that this proposed change does compliment the expanded tax concessions for Employee Share Schemes currently before Parliament (being those in Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (Employee Share Schemes) Bill 2015).

The media release confirms that the Government does intend to engage in consultation in relation to the current framework around the establishment and regulation of corporations. 

However, there is no further information detailing the next steps for implementation of the above changes.

Download a pdf version of this article: More good news for start-ups and entrepreneurs

For more information, please contact

Meagan O'Connor
Principal
Sladen Legal
+61 3 9611 0106
moconnor@sladen.com.au