The 2019/20 Queensland budget delivered on Tuesday contains a number of items, which will impact on Queensland businesses either directly (such as through taxation) or through increased funding opportunities. Whether you are small, medium or large, metropolitan or regional, these are the highlights to keep in mind:
Payroll tax:
- The payroll tax exemptions threshold will increase from $1.1 million to $1.3 million.
- A 0.2 per cent rate increase for more than 6,000 businesses with a wages bill of over $6.5 million.
- Regional payroll tax discount of 1 per cent for employers who have 85% of their employees outside of the South East.
- Employment growth rebate, capped at $20,000 per year per additional full time employee over the next two years.
Advance Queensland initiative:
- A funding increase of $105 million, for the total funding of $755 million.
- New measures funded will include $45 million for the Advance Queensland Industry Attraction Fund, $25 million for the Research Infrastructure Co-Investment Funds, $19 million for the Queensland Hydrogen Industry Development Strategy, $5 million for Biofutures 2.0 and $4 million in additional grant funding for the Advancing Small Business Queensland Strategy 2016–2020.
Regional infrastructure:
- As part of the Building our Regions program, extra $70 million for local government regional infrastructure projects.
- $1.599 billion in capital grants in 2019–20, including $50 million as part of the Works for Queensland program for infrastructure in regional communities.
- The Works for Queensland program will continue with an additional $50 million to support job-creating maintenance and minor infrastructure works across regional Queensland.
Innovation:
- The $80 million Business Development Fund to continue to assist start-ups, with some $20 million remaining to be allocated.
- Later this year, the Government will release its “Building our Innovation Economy – Advance Queensland Strategy” to provide further direction for the state development.
There are additional announcements in the areas of skills and training, film industry, tourism and others.
Please get in touch with us to learn what these and other Budget changes and initiatives will mean for your business.