Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said the Small Business Fees and Charges Rebate, which was announced in November’s Budget, would provide support for eligible small businesses, sole traders and non-profit organisations.
“It’s important that we support businesses to recover from the impact of the COVID pandemic and encourage business growth by reducing the cost of running a business,” Mr Perrottet said.
“The NSW Government has committed close to $500M for the new scheme, which shows our commitment to small businesses which are the life-blood of the NSW economy, supporting more than one million jobs.”
Minister for Customer Service Victor Dominello said businesses would be able to access the scheme through Service NSW.
“In the same vein as other support programs delivered by Service NSW during the pandemic, we want to ensure the application and redemption process is as seamless and intuitive as possible,” Mr Dominello said.
“We want small businesses to be spending as much time as possible serving customers and the minimum possible time dealing with government bureaucracy.”
Minister for Finance and Small Business Damien Tudehope said a small pilot program would start this month before it rolled out state-wide.
“Many licence fee waivers are about to expire and I encourage small businesses below the new 2020-21 payroll tax threshold of $1.2M to apply for this new rebate scheme,” Mr Tudehope said.
“This will help hundreds more businesses, along with entrepreneur and family businesses across the state, ensuring they have more money in their pockets as NSW continues its post-pandemic recovery.
“We want to make it easy to run a business and when we support small businesses, we support the recovery and jobs.”
Under the scheme, small businesses, sole traders and non-profit organisations can apply to be reimbursed up to $1500 for NSW and local government fees and charges that are related to the cost of doing business. These include:
• Food authority licences.
• Liquor licences.
• Tradesperson licences.
• Event fees.
• Council rates.
• Business vehicle registration fees.
The scheme cannot be used for fees and charges specifically excluded under policy guidelines, such as fines and penalties, and will only be available for those charges and fees that are due and paid after March 1, 2021.
It will be available via Service NSW in early April and will run until June 30, 2022. The scheme will allow eligible small businesses to draw down on a $1500 credit to offset the cost of eligible NSW and local government fees and charges. More information, including the program guidelines, are available at www.service.nsw.gov.au/small-business-fees-and-charges-rebate
