The institute’s general manager, tax policy and advocacy, Scott Treatt, CTA said with the cost of living soaring for Aussie families, the budget focused on providing relief through quick fixes and crowd-pleasers, but missed the chance for more stable and long-term economic change.
“Temporary, one-off measures are easier because they don’t require structural change in the tax system,” Mr Treatt said.
“But that’s also exactly why they are not enough – how many years can we skate by, applying more and more band-aid fixes? Especially with a huge deficit looming over us and uncertain global conditions, temporary fixes aren’t good enough anymore.”
The measures around digital technology and training for small businesses, allowing them to deduct an extra 20 per cent of the cost incurred on business expenses and depreciating assets that support their digital adoption, such as portable payment devices, cyber security systems or subscriptions to cloud-based services, were a notable positive from the Budget, though they too are temporary.
“This Budget does deliver relief on some key pain points and I’m sure it will be welcome news to many. But this is not a Budget that’s laying groundwork for a stable economic future – it’s a quick fix,” he said.
“These are temporary fixes for issues that aren’t going away anytime soon. When these issues keep coming up again and again in Budget conversations, that’s a sign that they need to be addressed in the structure of our tax system, not by temporary measures.
“A one-off payment might help this year, but what about next year? We can’t expect people make long-term plans about their own financial position if important measures only offer temporary benefits.”
