Party policies for the SME sector

MYOB’s latest General Election Snapshot asked over 400 SME business owners and decision makers what they would like the elected government to prioritise over the next three years. Priorities ranged from a focus on job creation and reduced compliance regulations, to a greater emphasis on roading infrastructure and digitisation.

The survey also highlighted that the majority of SME voters (74%) are concerned that insufficient attention will be paid to the issues affecting small business during the election campaign.

The current environment has deeply impacted the key concerns of SMEs – with the top three concerns being ongoing uncertainty around COVID-19, levels of customer demand and consumer confidence and the ability to continue to operate.

MYOB asked each of the five parliamentary parties to outline their small business policies, ahead of the forthcoming election.

Top ten priorities of NZ SMEs

More job creation (and support for employment growth)

47%

Faster completion of major road network projects

28%

Simplification of the New Zealand Holidays Act

12%

Completion of the RCG network (rural broadband connectivity project)

10%

Tax law simplification and streamlined compliance regulations

31%

Increasing/imposing tax for global multinational companies in NZ

23%

More access to Government contracts for SMEs

11%

Reduction of the company tax rate

28%

Investment in mental health and wellbeing support for business

22%

Digital skills and development training

11%

Education and training:Boost apprenticeship and trades training to help people upskill and retrain, often for free, in the next 2 years. Roll-out Apprenticeship Boost, providing thousands of employers with funding for two years to help pay the cost of an apprentice.

Jobs, jobs, jobs:Upgrade crucial infrastructure like hospitals, schools, roads and public transport to create thousands of new jobs.

Employment: Restore 90-day trials for all businesses and place a three-year moratorium on minimum wage increases. Businesses will have the discretion to increase wages where realistic for their business.

Sustainable jobs: Continue the Jobs for Nature programme, revitalise the Buy Kiwi Made campaign and create thousands of new jobs in the roll-out of solar panels for all suitable state homes.

Cost of training: Assist with the cost of staff training or apprenticeships in the workplace, including support for internships.

90-day trial: Extend the current 90-day trial to SMEs of 50 or less.

JobStart: $10,000 cash payment to businesses for all additional new employees – could incentivise up to 50,000 new jobs.

Employment Relations Act: Repeal the Government’s changes to the Act, including restoring 90-day trials. National will also get rid of the “no win, no fee” provisions.

Employment dispute resolution process: Simplify the employment dispute resolution process.

More job creation (and support for employment growth)

Small Business Package:Cost and compliance of the tax system for small businesses will be reduced.

Repeal the RMA and replace it with straight-forward environmental standards.

Tax: No tax increases or any new taxes.

Tax threshold:Increase the threshold to obtain a tax invoice from $50 to $500, to reduce compliance costs.

Provisional tax: Increase the threshold from $5000 to $25,000. Change the timing of the second provisional tax payments for businesses with a 31 March year end to 28 February.

GST:Raise compulsory GST threshold from $60,000 to $75,000.

Improve quality of lawmaking: Introduce a Regulatory Constitution requiring ministers and government agencies to make laws and regulations according to the basic principles of lawmaking.

Resource Management Act: Replace the Resource Management Act (RMA) with a law that lets people build without restrictive zoning.

Tax and compliance:Support work to simplify and reduce compliance requirements for SMEs. Examine ways to streamline the tax system to ensure simpler compliance over time.

Tax: Amend the provisional tax system for small businesses and establish a Tax Advocacy Service to assist SMEs.

New tax date: Move the timing of the 15 January tax payment out to 28 February to allow businesses to build up their cashflow over the summer holidays.

Compliance: Flexible compliance provisions in line with individual business needs.

Resource Management Act: Repeal and replace the RMA with two Acts, a Natural and Built Environments Act and a Strategic Planning Act, to reduce cost, compliance and better protect our environment.

Compliance: Continue to improve the efficiency of the tax system to reduce cost and compliance for SMEs.

Tax: Not implement new company taxes.

COVID-19: Continue to support SMEs through interest-free loans, changes to Provisional Tax threshold, loss carry-back scheme, and reinstatement of building depreciation.

No changes: Already reduced compliance through IR Business Transformation and Provisional Tax changes. No proposed changes to the company tax rate and Labour will ensure New Zealand has a balanced tax system.

Supports reduction: Supports the reduction of the company tax rate but the current fiscal environment makes it difficult to achieve in the short term.

No reductions:No proposed change to the company tax rate. Propose a 1% wealth tax on an individual’s net assets over $1 million to encourage people to invest in productive businesses.

Tax rate: No additional company taxes. Lower tax rate for exporters.

No reductions: No intention to reduce the company tax rate but National has other policies that will reduce the tax burden.

Tax law simplification and streamlined compliance regulations

Reduction of the company tax rate

Transport projects: The $31 billion transport programme will see projects get funded, commissioned and delivered at least 2 years before expected. The major roading projects in the programme include the East West Link, Penlink, Warkworth to Wellsford expressway and Christchurch to Ashburton.

Decision making: Remove infrastructure decision-making powers from ministers and vest them in an independent New Zealand Infrastructure Corporation. New roads will be built where there is congestion, not for political reasons.

New infrastructure: Recognise the need for freight transport and cycling infrastructure – investing in public transport can free up existing road space for freight where needed.

Major projects: Work through challenges such as skills and labour shortages, unclear regulations and poor project management so government and the private sector can efficiently and cost-effectively carry out and complete large infrastructure projects.

NZ Upgrade Programme:$6.8 billion of fully-funded transport projects across the country to ease congestion, create jobs and future-proof New Zealand’s economy. Upgrades will be delivered faster by speeding up resource consenting through the RMA fast-track.

Agreement, or tax: Work with the OECD to get an international agreement that would put measures in place so multinational corporations pay their fair share. Prepared to introduce a narrowly targeted Digital Services Tax (DST) if agreement is not possible.

Policy to be announced. Tax global giants: Tax the money made by Facebook, Amazon and other big digital giants in Aotearoa through a unilateral Digital Services Tax of 3% on gross revenues or through working multilaterally through the OECD if international progress is achieved.

Continued legislation:Ensure it remains a level playing field for SMEs and that overseas firms are not able to exploit and profit shift without paying their share of tax.

Pay their share: Agree that multinationals should pay their fair share – National started work under the OECD’s base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) programme. Notes that as a small country, New Zealand would find it difficult to go out on its own and problems are best solved by countries working together.

Faster completion of major road network projects

Increasing/imposing tax for global multinational companies in NZ

Investment in mental health and wellbeing support for business

Simplification of the New Zealand Holidays Act

Mental health: Deliver frontline mental health services sooner so New Zealanders can access high quality services faster and easier.

Mental health: Create a separate, stand-alone Mental Health and Addiction agency on a national scale, where patients can choose between a range of providers.

Mental health: Ensure Worksafe has the capacity to ensure safe workplaces free from bullying, harassment and sexual harassment and that employment laws enable flexible working arrangements.

Wellbeing: Facilitate a business culture where wellbeing is regarded with importance and explore ways to ground economic progress in a sustainability framework. Measure wellbeing within companies rather than just annual turnover.

Advisory group: Set up a small business advisory group that will establish what the challenges are for SMEs that hold them back and work to remove these. This would be additional to the investment NZ First has already made in mental health provision.

Mental health: Continue to roll out the new universal front-line mental health service, training more qualified mental health workers, and building new facilities.

Support network:Continue to roll-out the Regional Business Partners Network where SMEs can access free support – including health and wellness support for owners and staff.

Strengthening and simplifying: Committed to strengthening and simplifying the Holidays Act, including making it easier to calculate leave entitlements and deductions.

Policy to be announced. Review of the Act: Businesses that want to move to a 4-day work week can run into issues with the Act and this should be considered in any review of the Act. The Holidays Act should also ensure all working people can access up to 10 days sick leave.

Simplification: Commit to the simplification of the Act in order for easier and consistent interpretation.

Support:National supports the simplification of the Holidays Act where practicable.

Supporting the uptake of digital technology:Invest $75 million over two years for more support for digital training courses for SMEs with up to 20 staff, including both general digital skills and tailored training for particular industries.

Education and development:ACT’s Student Education Accounts will put the education budget in the hands of New Zealanders so they can make better choices about investments in human capital.

Cash to invest: In the medium term, ACT would like to see a reduction in the company tax rate so businesses have more cash to invest in skills, training and development.

Digital skills and training:Implement InternetNZ’s 5 point plan for digital inclusion – includes digital skills training for displaced workers and SMEs. This could take the form of support packages to help get businesses online or government funded skills training for job seekers.

Train the trainer: Facilitate delivery of a series of regional digital ‘train the trainer’ sessions for business associations.

Credits: Introduce technology credits for SMEs to purchase digital tools and software.

Industry training:Return autonomy and independence to the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs) and ensure that industry training is led by industry, not Government.

Opportunity to participate: It’s important SMEs have the opportunity to participate and procurement rules need to be more robustly followed, particularly when contracts are awarded.

Work together: SMEs should be able to tender for government contracts but a qualifications process should ensure businesses can deliver contracts under unforeseen circumstances.

Support local businesses: Use government procurement to support local suppliers and open-source software, and commit to government departments buying more goods and services from Aotearoa businesses.

No new policy: Previously developed a new rule which meant SMEs would be given opportunities that they were traditionally shut out of (in terms of Govt contracts).

Procurement practices:Committed to improving government procurement practices, including reforming Government Procurement Rules to prioritise New Zealand businesses, and requiring central government agencies to pay 95% of invoices within ten days.

Digital skills and development training

More access to Government contracts for SMEs

About the MYOB General Election Snapshot

About the MYOB pre-election policy report

The New Zealand MYOB General Election Snapshot was conducted using Pure Profile’s business panel. In total, 401 SME decision makers were surveyed from employing businesses.

The survey was conducted online from July 20th-24th, 2020.

In September 2020, MYOB asked the National, ACT, Green, NZ First and Labour parties what policies of theirs reflected the top policy priorities of New Zealand SMEs. In MYOB’s General Election Snapshot, SMEs were asked what they would like the elected government to prioritise over the next three years. The top 10 answers were used in this report.

MYOB is a leading business platform with a core purpose of helping more businesses in New Zealand and Australia start, survive and succeed. At the heart of MYOB is a customer base of 1.2 million businesses and a network of more than 40,000 accountants, bookkeepers and consultants, for whom MYOB delivers end-to-end business and accounting solutions. MYOB operates across four key segments: Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), Enterprise, Financial Services and Practice.

For more information, visit myob.co.nz or follow @MYOB on Twitter.

About MYOB

Faster internet: Invest $1 billion over 10 years for faster internet, with rural blackspots closed and speeds boosted to 100 mbps of unlimited broadband data on the UFB/RBI network.

Policy to be announced. Rural coverage:Support further investment in resilient, affordable rural broadband and cellular coverage.

Key infrastructure: Rural broadband is key infrastructure and would be progressed as part of the NZ Infrastructure Commission work and Provincial Growth Fund.

Improve connectivity: Continue to improve broadband connectivity and capacity across New Zealand with a particular focus on rural communities, connecting around 84,000 rural homes and businesses by 2023.

Completion of the RCG network (rural broadband connectivity project)

Policies in detail

For further information on each party’s business policies, visit their websites:

labour.org.nz/policyact.org.nz/policiesgreens.org.nz/policy_election_initiatives_2020nzfirst.nznational.org.nz/policy