Posted: 22 October 2020

Final COVID-19 Survival Panel for SMEs

Empowering SMEs (Issue 075)

The final COVID-19 Survival Panel webinar for SMEs is being presented on Wednesday, 28th October 2020 at 12-noon AEST (1.00pm AEDT).

The keynote presenters are Ashley Evans, Managing Director, AAA+ Financial Solutions and Peter Towers, Managing Director, ESS BIZTOOLS and ESS Small Business.

In his presentation titled "Meeting The Financial Challenges Of 2020/21", Ashley Evans will discuss the current funding position in Australia as it relates to small and medium-sized enterprises and will discuss what he thinks will emerge over the next 2 years as businesses and the government continue the battle against COVID-19 Coronavirus.

A number of commentators have indicated that funding for SMEs is likely to be very difficult over the next 2 years. This is because banks have already made significant amounts of loans to the SME community over the last 8 months which could cause banks to be reluctant to lend more money to SMEs.

The Reserve Bank and the Australian government have lent funds to the banks to enable the banks to have a special loan facility available which is a maximum loan of $1 million at a low interest rate which is 50% guaranteed by the Australian government, repayable over a 5 year period with loan applications being accepted until 30th June 2021.

Some commentators believe that there will be a lot more interest shown over the next 2 years for Crowd Sourced Funding Equity Raising, as this method of raising capital does not involve borrowing money and therefore does not require any security or personal guarantees.

If you have any questions that you would like Ashley Evans to consider in his presentation on the two-year financial picture for SMEs, please send us an email with your question and we will pass this on to Ashley. Emails should be sent to peter@essbiztools.com.au.

Peter Towers will comment on an expectation that many people have been undertaking research and development activities during the COVID-19 Coronavirus lockdown and as conditions improve many of these inventors will be considering what they might be able to do with the prototype or conceptional plan that they have produced and will also be asking questions as to whether they can claim any income tax deduction or rebate for the time and effort that they have spent on the research and development activities.

An important component of this review is the consideration of the Early Stage Innovation Company status that has been available for over 3 years for businesses to utilise.

The Early Stage Innovation Company status is targeted at “young companies” which have developed a new product, process, service, management or marketing methodology. The companies are required to self-assess against two major test categories to determine whether the company will meet the requirements for the Early Stage Innovation Company status.

The ESIC status assists the company to be able to raise capital because investors in an Early Stage Innovation Company receive a taxation incentive based on the amount of their investment and, as long as they hold the shares in the company for longer than 12 months, they avoid paying capital gains tax on those shares. If you have any questions that you would like Peter Towers to consider in his presentation on the requirements to qualify as an Early Stage Innovation Company, please send us an email with your question and Peter will comment on it in his presentation. Send email to peter@essbiztools.com.au.

You can register for this free webinar – the last in the COVID-19 Survival Panel webinar series for SMEs - which is being presented on Wednesday, 28th October 2020 by (Clicking here).

In the previous webinar held on the 14th October 2020, presentations were made by Matthew Karakoulakis, Partner, AMK Law - “Legal Structure for Start-Up and Growth” and Jordan Lowry “A Better You, a Better Business”.

If you would like to access the recording of this webinar, please (Click here).

If you would like further information about the services provided to SMEs by ESS Small Business, please visit our website https://www.esssmallbusiness.com.au/ or contact me for a discussion: