A Plan to Improve NSW's Business Conditions

A Plan to Improve NSW's Business Conditions

The Iemma Governments recent tinkering with payroll tax is a long-awaited acknowledgement that businesses on the Northern Rivers do not operate from a level playing field when competing with businesses across the border.

Northern Rivers business owners are innovative and hard working, but they need more relief from NSW's uncompetitive taxes and charges. The alternative proposed by the NSW Nationals and Liberals is to reduce non-essential public spending and to attract investment and improve growth by cutting tax and red tape for business.

NSW is currently the highest taxing state, with each NSW individual paying $2597 in tax and more! Recent new taxes in NSW include increased stamp duty on insurance products, increasing the Waste and Environment Levy, extending payroll tax, new mining charges, extending land tax and new measures on Mortgage Duty. Unless this trend is reversed and business taxes reduced NSW can expect to see little improvement in its already low growth rate.

Several commitments already made by the NSW Nationals and Liberals to reduce tax include overhauling the payroll tax system to give savings of $282 million by 2008. This would involve raising the tax threshold on payroll tax from $600,000 to $850,000, thereby eliminating payroll tax for 4500 business and cutting payroll tax by $15,000 for a further 22,000 businesses.

Another is to freeze the clubs tax at its current rate, unlike the current NSW Government which plans to continue increasing clubs tax, effectively forcing them out of business. This is an important issue for the Lismore Electorate, because our local clubs provide generous support to many local sporting groups and community organisations. Without this support many of these organisations and groups would struggle to survive.

Already the clubs tax has forced the closure of some smaller clubs and the loss of an estimated 2,000 jobs across the State. A report by the Allens Consulting Group found the clubs tax will cost more than 24,000 jobs state-wide by 2010, including 3,500 jobs in country areas. The current State Government needs to understand that long term stability for the clubs industry is essential to maintaining their support for the local community.

It is essential that all NSW businesses are given the tax relief they need to operate and compete effectively against businesses in other States.