1. Job Creation Grant Scheme
Job creation grants will be made available for every new employee hired and maintained for two years by businesses with a total national payroll of $5 million or less.
- A Job Accelerator Grant of up to $10 000 ($5000 each year for two years) per new full-time equivalent (FTE) job created for businesses liable for payroll tax in SA with total Australian wages of $5 million or less.
- A Job Accelerator Grant for Small Business & Start-ups of up to $4000 ($2000 each year for two years) per new job created is available for most businesses that are not liable for payroll tax. This includes businesses with Australian wages below the payroll tax free threshold (currently $600 000) and most organisations that are exempt from payroll tax (e.g. public benevolent institution).
Businesses that increase their number of SA employees will be eligible to receive a grant for each additional worker employed by them in a new position between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2018. The grant will be paid at the first and second anniversary date of employment.
Businesses must register a new employee within 90 days of the employee’s commencement date.
The number of employees in a business will comprise:
- for the Job Accelerator Grant:
the total number of full-time employees plus the total number of hours worked in the preceding pay week by all South Australian part-time and casual employees, divided by 35 (the full-time hours definition used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics); and
- for the Job Accelerator Grant for Small Business & Start-ups:
the total number of full-time employees plus the number of South Australian part-time and casual employees that worked more than 22 hours in the past pay week.
2. Extension of the current Small Business Payroll Tax Rebate
The small business payroll tax rebate introduced in the 2013–14 Budget will be extended for a further four years to 2019–20 at a cost of around $10 million per annum and provide a benefit of up to $9800 each year to an estimated 2300 businesses. The scheme provides a payroll tax saving for employers with taxable payrolls less than or equal to $1.2 million.
Once the rebate payments have been made, eligible employers with a taxable Australian payroll of up to $1 million will have effectively paid payroll tax at a level equivalent to 2.45 percentage points lower than the statutory rate of 4.95%.
Rebate payments phase out for eligible employers with a taxable payroll of between $1 million and $1.2 million.
The rebate payment for eligible employers who have taxable wages below $1.2 million is determined in accordance with the difference in rates shown in the table below.
(Source Revenue SA)
3. Gig City Campaign
$4.7 million over four years has been pledged to make Adelaide part of the global Gig City network. This will involve giving businesses access to SABRENet, a high-speed, optical fibre network currently used by the state government and universities (10 times faster than the NBN). The program will connect up existing innovation spaces to create an entire ultra-high speed broadband innovation network, building an environment for start-ups and existing businesses to compete on a global scale. The roll out of the Gig City network to Adelaide is expected to start at the end of the year.
4. Choose South Australia Campaign
The government will provide $2 million for a 12-month “Choose South Australia” campaign to be run by Brand South Australia. The campaign aims to raise the awareness of South Australian made goods and services enabling the public to identify and purchase products and services that support South Australian jobs. A grant was made to Brand SA in 2015–16 to undertake this program, which will be launched in 2016–17
5. Innovation
- The government will establish a $50 million South Australian Venture Capital Fund to partner with private sector financiers to support innovation and help build high growth companies in South Australia.
- The State Government has also set aside $10 million to assist early stage businesses progress to the job creation stage, as well as $7.5 million for UniSA’s Future Industries Institute to foster innovation and collaboration.
6. Stamp Duty
- Stamp duty concessions for off-the-plan apartments extended and expanded outside Adelaide. Concessions of up to $15,500 were due to run out at the end of June but will instead be extended until the end of June 2017. They originally applied only to apartments in Adelaide's CBD and some inner suburbs but will now apply to any new apartments built anywhere in the state.
- Phased abolition of stamp duty on non-residential real property transfers introduced in last year's budget. Duty rates reduced by 1/3rd from 7 December 2015, reduced by a further 1/3rd from 1 July 2017, abolished from 1 July 2018.