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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-11-02 Daily Xml
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Small Business

In reply to Mr WINGARD (Mitchell) (2 August 2016). (Estimates Committee B)

The Hon. M.L.J. HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Minister for Investment and Trade, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Defence Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs):

1. 'There are no official statistics available for small business job creation at a state level. In June 2015, the Department of State Development commissioned independent analysis from consulting firm EconSearch to estimate the contribution of small businesses to the South Australian labour force. This analysis was underpinned by the ABS Counts of Australian Businesses – Entries and Exits publication. For methodological reasons, the analysis was based on 2012-13 ABS data. The EconSearch report found that the employment contribution of small businesses in the state was an estimated 242,000 full-time equivalent jobs, representing 34% of the state total. An update to this analysis based on newly released ABS data is being investigated by the department.

2. A range of factors, including the lack of official statistics on state-level small business employment from which to establish a baseline, makes it difficult to produce reliable modelled forecasts of small business job creation. The $109 million Jobs Accelerator Grant Scheme which came into effect on 1 July 2016 will support small business job creation in South Australia. The Department of Treasury and Finance estimates this scheme will provide grants for 14,000 full-time equivalent positions.

3. The Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation has provided the following advice:

'All the Micro Finance Fund recipients are still operating their businesses, with the final reports on outcomes for each expected later this year.'

4. The Department of Treasury and Finance advises that RevenueSA does not collect information about the number of employees within businesses remitting payroll tax. It only requires businesses to provide the total value of its payroll. For the Small Business Payroll Tax Rebate, small business is defined as those having a taxable payroll of less than $1.2 million. The extension of the rebate until 2019-20 is predicted to assist approximately 2,300 businesses.

5. All of those 2,300 small businesses will benefit from the rebate, but no data is available, and no modelling has been undertaken, to determine how many of those 2,300 businesses have between 1 and 19 employees.

6. The advice from the Department of Treasury and Finance is that the Jobs Accelerator Grant Scheme requires, in addition to other eligibility criteria unrelated to your question, that:

(a) the services of the employee are performed wholly or mainly in South Australia;

(b) the employee is a South Australian resident; and

(c) the employer pays wages, within the meaning of the Payroll Tax Act 2009, nationally of $5 million or less.'

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