"Small and family businesses are being handed a bill of up to $13.3 billion for the cost of valuations, advisers and stamp duty because our Taxaholic Treasurer broke his election promise and can't kick his spending addiction", said Shadow Treasurer, Tim Wilson.
Mr Wilson's comments come in the wake of the Albanese government introducing its legislation for a 30 per cent minimum tax on discretionary trusts, with reports trust holders face up to $13.3 billion in advice and restructuring costs or face a higher tax bill.
In the House of Representatives, the Albanese government blocked the Opposition's motion to refer the legislation to the Standing Committee on Economics.
"The Treasury has said at least 350,000 small businesses operate through a discretionary trust. Labor's minimum 30% tax directly threatens their financial stability and survival", Mr Wilson said.
"We already have near-record small business insolvencies, collapsing consumer confidence and real profits lower than at the change of government, and the answer from the Albanese government is to add new taxes and costs".
"This is just another cost for businesses that cafés and tradies will have to pass on as higher prices for customers".
"The Treasurer hasn't resolved the stamp duty issues with his new small business tax, and State Treasurers are unaware of negotiations to fix the problem".
Shockingly, the Treasurer has failed to fix his birth tax, where a child born after 1 July 2028 still can't be added to a nomination, and the ATO's discretionary powers don't allow for variations on most changing family circumstances. Labor's workaround is to have a 'one-shot only' trust election in 2028-29, and it is locked in.
Businesses are stranded in uncertainty because the Minister can make 12 rules by legislative instrument, none of which have been released. Legislation is still to be released on collection, PAYG, notices to beneficiaries, reporting, residency, CGT interactions, and integrity rules.
"Small businesses are the lifeblood of communities, where kids get their first job, opening at dawn, greeting their neighbours by name", Mr Wilson said.
"The Treasurer has rewritten this tax again and again since Budget night because he doesn't understand his own policy or the damage it does. Every backdown is an admission it should never have been proposed in the first place".
"While the Treasurer writes new taxes on trusts, the tax office is chasing small businesses over decades-old paperwork. Small and family businesses are being squeezed from both ends of Canberra at once".
"After last week's credit card surcharge circus, no Australian should trust this Treasurer to get complex tax law right the first time".
"A Coalition government will change the rules back on trusts and give small and family businesses the certainty to back themselves".
The Housing Industry Association warned that "the Federal Government's proposed minimum tax on family trusts would amount to a new tax on tradies, builders and small family businesses, while creating costly business disruptions that would divert attention away from building the homes Australia desperately needs".
"If the Treasurer rams this through, small businesses will be paying advisers instead of hiring apprentices, while he lines up his next humiliating backflip".
"Get this right, and small businesses can stop paying for advice and get back to what they do best: investing, employing and growing. Australia needs a stand-up economy, not a sit-down economy, and that starts with a government that stops targeting self-starters", Mr Wilson said.
Shadow Minister for Small Business, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, said, "this is another assault on small family businesses by the Albanese Labor Government. Labor is launching a war on the small businesses we desperately need to provide the skilled workers we currently have a shortage of and to help build homes in the middle of a housing crisis. Instead of backing small business, Labor is piling on the taxes, complexity and restructuring costs".
