SA Govt announces business cash grants for lockdown relief

Money.jpgThe South Australian State Government has announced emergency cash grants for businesses that experience significant hardship as a result of this week's hard lockdown.

To be eligible for $3,000 worth of emergency assistance as a one-off payment, a business must, as at 12:01am Tuesday 20 July 2021: 

  • Be located within South Australia;
  • Have an annual turnover of $75,000 or more in 2020-21 or 2019-20, and be registered for GST;
  • Employ people in South Australia;
  • Have an Australia-wide payroll of less than $10 million in 2019-20;
  • Have a valid Australian Business Number (ABN); and
  • Have experienced at least a 30 per cent reduction for the 7 days from 20th July 2021 (compared to the week prior) in turnover due to the restricted trading conditions.

We don't know yet whether income for turnover purposes will be measured on a cash or accruals basis.

Further, given the extremely narrow comparative windows, there's some ambiguity here as to whether a week-to-week turnover reduction is the best indicator of 'hardship'. Turnover for many businesses is naturally lumpy and can fluctuate wildly over the short term, even under normal conditions.

Will a business whose receipts tend to come in at the end of the month, and which therefore experienced naturally lower income in the leadup to lockdown, be ineligible for assistance, even if it has been hit hard? Likewise, would one that happened to receive a significant injection of income prior to lockdown, but this week would have received little income regardless, be eligible even though it is doing just fine?

At this point our advice is to seriously consider the words 'as a result of the state’s seven day lockdown' and if this applies to your situation, register your interest here. The specific eligibility criteria can then be worked through as required, and we're happy to help you pull the necessary figures together and advocate on your behalf if needed.

Even though the grants are labelled as emergency assistance, the Government is not expecting the application process to be available on their website for another two weeks.

A one-off emergency grant of $1,000 is also available for businesses that don't employ people, subject to the same criteria above minus the requirement to employ people in South Australia.

Although we're not currently in the office, it's otherwise business as usual and we're here to help. If you need more information or assistance with this, please contact us.

 

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