Temporary cash flow boosts will support small and medium businesses and not-for-profit organisations during the economic downturn associated with COVID-19.
Eligible businesses and not-for-profit (NFP) organisations who employ staff will receive between $20,000 to $100,000 in cash flow boost amounts by lodging their activity statements up to the month or quarter of September 2020.
The cash flow boosts will be delivered as credits in the activity statement system. They will generally be equivalent to the amount withheld from wages paid to employees for each monthly or quarterly period from March to June 2020. In practice, this means you keep the amounts you have withheld from payments for these periods. However, there are some exceptions.
An additional cash flow boost will be applied when activity statements for each monthly or quarterly period from June to September 2020 are lodged. These credits are equal to the total boosts credited for March to June 2020. They will be paid out in either two or four instalments depending on your reporting cycle.
What you need to know
- For most businesses, the cash flow boost will automatically be credited to your account when you lodge your activity statement.
- When you lodge your June 2020 activity statement you may receive both initial and additional cash flow boosts as credits ؎ see examples of what you will receive and check out our Cash flow boost estimator (XLSX 5.3MB)This link will download a file to work out an estimate of your cash flow boost amount.
- The cash flow boost will be applied to reduce liabilities arising from the same activity statement – if there is credit remaining after this occurs, you will generally receive a refund of that amount.
- If you are due to receive a refund, we will generally pay it within 14 days.
- You must be eligible for the initial cash flow boost, in order to be eligible for the additional cash flow boosts.
- Any cash flow boost amounts you receive are non-assessable non-exempt (NANE) income and should be reported in the same way as you report other NANE income when lodging your tax return – see Tax consequences.
Eligibility
Businesses (including sole traders, companies, partnerships or trusts) and NFP organisations will be eligible to receive the cash flow boost if:
- you are a small or medium business entity or NFP of equivalent size (that is, an entity with aggregated annual turnover less than $50 million)
- you held an Australian business number (ABN) on 12 March 2020.
- you either
- made payments to employees subject to withholding (even if the amount you were required to withhold was zero), such as
- salary and wages
- director fees
- eligible retirement or termination payments
- compensation payments
- voluntary withholding from payments to contractors
- were required to pay an amount in relation to alienated personal services income you received (even if the amount you were required to pay was zero)
- made payments to employees subject to withholding (even if the amount you were required to withhold was zero), such as
- on or before 12 March 2020, you lodged at least one of
- a 2019 tax return showing that you had an amount included in your assessable income in relation to you carrying on a business
- an activity statement or GST return for any tax period that started after 1 July 2018 and ended before 12 March 2020 showing that you made a taxable, GST-free or input-taxed sale.
