Business Owners
Not much for the small to medium business owner – larger start-up companies will be able to receive a cash payment instead of carrying forward losses for expenditure on Research and Development from 2015/2016 (up to $500,000), but that does not apply to most business owners in the SME range.
Cheque duty will be abolished from 1 July 2014.
Families
The main changes are in the support of families with increased parental tax credits targeting the low to middle income families and the extension of paid parental leave from 14 to 16 and then to 18 at 1 April 2016. The extension of eligibility for paid parental leave to “home for life” caregivers and to people in less regular jobs – casual and seasonal must be a welcome change.
Free doctors’ visits for children under 13 will be funded.
Increased funding for early childhood education.
New funding for identifying ‘at-risk’ children.
$1.8 billion over four years for health initiatives (e.g. rheumatic fever detection)
The ACC levy for a private motor vehicle could fall from July 2015 although this is not definite.
Tax
Small tax reductions were hinted at, sometime in the future, if the money is there.
Again funding for tax compliance has been extended to Inland Revenue with an additional $132 million over five years to increase their activities in this area expecting to achieve revenue of almost $300 million over the same period.
General Investments
Research in science and Innovation has been boosted with allocations to the tertiary institutes and Auckland Transport received a $375 million interest free loan and several small allocation were made for environmental measures.
A West Coast hospital has been funded and money has been allocated for building and upgrading schools ($172 million) plus $858 million over four years for education, in part teacher performance awards for example.
KiwiRail has received $198 million to try and get back into profit and Christchurch continues to be financially supported.
The Duty-free limit for cigarettes has been cut from 200 to 50 from 1 November 2014 and tobacco products coming through customs that were eligible as a duty free gift ($110) are now subject to excise duty and GST.
Comment
We can hope that the small surplus forecast for 2014/2015 eventuates and that the business community can look forward to more tangible support in the next budget