There would seem to be a plethora of support programs to incentivise SME investment in Australia, created at all levels of government.

This volume of programs demonstrates both how important SME support is, and how significant the problem of SME funding is.  We do not cover all of the possible funding support mechanisms, such as grants and government contracts.  There are some very good businesses that do provide those services with state based focus and specialty.

Our focus here is on the Federal Government incentive schemes supporting SME funding needs.

It has never been enough to merely create a volume of programs and schemes claiming to provide SME funding support.  All too often and too many of these programs are of such limited real-world value to SMEs that it leads to conclusions that either:

1. They did not understand SME needs; or
2. They might have understood SME needs but had no idea what they were doing when drafting the program; or
3. Even if they knew how to draft a useful program, too many vested interests diluted and amended the program to be less than fully useful; or
4. Regardless how well they understood SME needs, how to draft a useful program, and control for vested interests the whole exercise was a cynical political move to “be seen to be doing something usefull, without actually doing anything useful”.

Federal Tax Incentivised SME Investment Programs

Here, we consider and present the benefits and differences between the four main Federal government programs for incentivising SME investment.

R&D Tax Incentive Scheme;
Angel Investment Tax Incentive Scheme;
Venture Capital Limited Partnerships; and
Early Stage Venture Capital Limited Partnerships.

Actually, the last two programs offer the greatest incentive programs (including complete tax exemption on investment returns) but actually fall under the umberella of “Tax benefits and support to stimulate the early stage venture capital sector” not the Australian SME sector.

Lellco takes a different view to this, whereby the investment offeror needs greater access to the full range of tax incentive programs, which is why we offer our Tax Incentivised Investment services.

This series will cover:

R&D Tax Incentive Scheme;
Personal Direct Investment Incentives
The Venture Capital Program
Matrix of Programs
Optimised Incentive: Self-Managed VC Funds

Program Comparisons

Comparing the range of available government tax incentivised investment programs can be a bit complicated.

The following are simplified overviews and comparisons of the available programs and is not intended to be advice.  Comparing programs is almost as complicated as fully understanding and comparing mobile phone contracts or utility supplier agreements.

If you seek customised advice to understand the options available to your investment offering we will be glad to help.