21st Jun 2023, 10:17 AM – Senate Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 4) Bill 2022 - in Committee - Skills and Training Boost and the Technology Investment Boost

The majority voted against an amendment introduced by ACT Senator David Pocock (Independent), which means it was not successful.

What was the purpose of this amendment?

Senator Pocock explained that:

[The Skills and Training Boost and the Technology Investment Boost] are great measures for small businesses to help them digitise to drive genuine productivity among small businesses, but they have two weeks to make use of this funding. We're told that it will be backdated to March and small businesses can keep their receipts and claim it, but every small business we in my office have talked to has had no idea about this scheme. It seems that it won't have much effect, and, potentially, the only people to benefit from this will be the government's bottom line, given that there was money budgeted for it.

This amendment seeks to ensure that small businesses do have a year to digitise and claim some of that back on tax. This is incredibly important for our small businesses who are seeking to become more efficient, to increase productivity, and indeed we hear a lot about productivity from both sides of politics at the moment.