Budget 2021, due to be delivered in October 2020, will be keenly watched by entrepreneurs and owners of small to medium enterprises in Ireland. The sector has been severely impacted by the measures implemented to stem the spread of Covid-19. In particular, sectors such as retail, hospitality, and tourism have experienced catastrophic losses as a result of closures and restrictions implemented since March 2020.
This year, more than ever, there is a sense that the upcoming budget will seek to assist SME’s through a variety of measures. Some measures have, in part been leaked to the media in the usual manner of pre-budget leaks, and there is widespread anticipation that the Budget will seek to stabilise the sector that provides the largest employment base in the country.
- Some of the measures that might feature in the upcoming budget include:
- Tax relief on loans taken out to support the ongoing maintenance of a business or to diversify in an effort to protect the business
- Tax relief for targeted expenditure, such as building and construction work associated with distancing measures
- Supports for start ups to enable people previously in employment to start their own businesses and to reduce their reliance upon unemployment benefits
- Expansion of the qualifying criteria for Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland loans to SME’s
- Extension of the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme further into 2021 to enable viable companies to ‘get back on their feet’
- Tax warehousing to defer payments to the Revenue Commissioners.
While the list above is part ‘wish-list’ it does address many of the problems that small to medium-sized companies have been dealing with during 2020.
We have been working extensively with our client base on issues that could be resolved by such measures. Our consultancy team has worked to restructure companies to better prepare them for business life with – and after -Covid-19. If you would like to talk to us and see how we could help your company to overcome issues and to grow your business, then call us on 052 37775 or email our Managing Director Áine Kiely O’Donnell directly at: [email protected].
Budget 2021 Series
You can read our previous articles from our Budget 2021 series, below.
Budget 2021: Cashflow & Tax Relief for Businesses
Budget 2021, to be delivered by the Irish Government in early October will be the most keenly awaited budget for a generation. The unprecedented nature of the pandemic and the demands placed upon the exchequer for the the healthcare system, business supports, the pandemic unemployment payment and the TWSS/EWSS has cast the budgetary process into disarray. Now, as the country battles with rising rates of Covid-19 infection, the respective finance Ministers (Pascal Donohue and Michael McGrath) are tasked with delivering measures that shore up public finances while energising the Irish economy. In this, the third article in our pre-budget series, we look at the cashflow and tax relief measures that might be introduced in Budget 2021. As is now common place, many of the measures listed below have been leaked/briefed to journalists in the weeks ahead of the budget in an attempt to prepare the public for what is to be announced.
Budget 2021: Maintaining Employment
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a catastrophic on the Irish employment market. To put this into perspective, let us look at unemployment rates in Ireland in April 2019 and in April 2020. April 2019 saw an unemployment rate of 5.4%, while the rate in April 2020 was a staggering 28.2% (Ref: CSO. Link here). Since the easing of lockdown measures, the Government has rolled out many schemes to get as many people back to work as is possible. However, that mobilisation of the workforce has been hampered by rising case numbers and local lockdowns in the case of Kildare Laois, and Offaly.