Our latest insights

‘We have always done it that way.’ The seven most expensive words in a business, remarked Janine Allis from Boost Juice at the recent Family Business Australia conference.

When it comes to M&A transactions, businesses can often be eligible for GST refunds – but how do you determine if this is the case, and how much is recoverable? In our latest Tax in M&A series, we look at a threshold test that can be applied to transactions whereby businesses only make limited financial supplies. But there is a limit to how much GST can be claimed back when the Financial Acquisitions Threshold (‘FAT’) has been exceeded.

AusTrade announced the opening of the next round of the 2023 Export Market Development Grant (EMDG) program. Applications are proposed to open for 5 weeks, from 31 May to 5 July 2022. The EMDG program is the Federal Government’s cornerstone funding program encouraging Australian businesses to seek export opportunities for their goods, services, intellectual property and software. The program allows businesses to access grants over an 8 year period, or up to a total funding amount of $770,000. The reform model is available to businesses with a turnover of less than $20m as at 30 June 2022.

Australian manufacturers have been through difficult times, particularly with the shutdown of the automotive industry, but remaining businesses are proving to be agile and resilient having already battled through lots of challenges. In addition, the accelerating pace of new technologies being introduced, combined with COVID-19 disruption and the Government’s substantial industry support, many manufacturing business models have been fundamentally challenged for the better.

On Tuesday 10 May 2022 the Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner handed down his final budget. The 2022-23 Northern Territory budget outlined a $1.1b deficit and net debt of $8.7b, which is an improvement in the forecasting contained within the 2021 Budget which forecasted a 2022/23 deficit of $1.2b and net debt of $10.1b.

Whilst Covid-19 accelerated the growth of online retail, we can expect something of a post-pandemic rebirth of physical stores. Humans are social creatures. We like to interact. To look and feel. To experience.

With so much media coverage and laws focused on paying your people correctly, businesses today are more aware about the potential to have payroll issues.

As the FY22 year-end financial reporting date approaches, we explore some of the important changes, current environmental risks and why it pays to start planning early.

While conflict happens, how you manage it can be the difference between a business (and family) that thrives, and one that becomes destabilised.

With rising supply chain costs and disruptions on a global scale as a result of the pandemic, Australia has been a prime example of resilience by increasing reliance on domestic products to minimise shortages. Although we’ve increased the supply of Australian products, some organisations struggle to compete with global sellers. As supply chains slowly ease back into a pre-pandemic rhythm and import capabilities open back up to their full potential, to compete on a global scale more efficiently, this creates an opportunity to consider where trade policies via tariffs and quotas could be applied to even out the playing field.

The latest economic figures show there will be a challenging period ahead for the Australian economy and at Grant Thornton, we know that the retail sector is not immune to these shifting tides.

The Australian Labor Party (Labor) today announced that, if elected, it will seek to introduce measures to "close tax loopholes exploited by multinational companies".