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ABC News Daily

Will tax changes really kill small businesses?

25 May 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 5.974 Unknown

ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

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8.013 - 21.028 Sam Hawley

What's on the mind of the country's biggest, most influential and most innovative business leaders? You get to find out every Friday with me, Alan Coler, as I sit down with the people influencing the markets, the economy and the ideas shaping our world.

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21.208 - 33.823 Alan Kohler

The housing supply situation is completely out of whack and if we don't act urgently about this, we will end up in a world where it doesn't matter how big the pie is, and how much your slice is, you won't have anywhere to eat it.

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Chapter 2: What are the implications of the government's budget tax changes?

33.903 - 65.921 Sam Hawley

Find That's Business with Alan Kohler on the ABC Business Daily feed, on ABC Listen, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's a stunt that's gone viral. Memes featuring an AI-generated prime minister having a 47% stake in small businesses. But what's the reality of the government's budget tax changes?

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66.682 - 81.22 Sam Hawley

Today we chat to a concerned small business owner and to an economist about what the tax changes mean for the wealth of Australians. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.

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93.097 - 102.398 Unknown

The PM's trending as business owners flood social media with AI-generated memes depicting him as a co-owner of their companies.

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102.462 - 107.469 Anthony Albanese

Some of them are very flattering and I thank them for picking very nice photos of me.

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107.57 - 123.593 Unknown

Triggered by Labor's decision to scrap the 50% capital gains tax discount and replace it with a model index to inflation, sparking fears entrepreneurs will be taxed at the highest rate of 47% when they sell their business.

124.788 - 134.857 Sasha Thurston

Hi, I'm Sasha Thurston and I own a very small business called Yoga Hub, a local yoga studio in Mount Hawthorne in Western Australia.

135.278 - 157.782 Sam Hawley

Sasha, as a small business owner, I'm sure you did not miss these memes that came out last week about the changes to the capital gains tax for business. Just tell me, what did you think when you saw them and the fact that they were saying that Anthony Albanese was apparently going to have 47% equity in your company.

159.28 - 187.728 Sasha Thurston

Look, my feeling on it was I can see where it's coming from. My point of view is that I understand that we need to do something about generational inequity, particularly on housing. And I think most Australians genuinely support those measures. The thing that is confusing to me is that we've had this government speak a lot about moving into a productivity phase.

188.429 - 199.984 Sasha Thurston

And I feel as if they've sort of tacked on some tax measures that they want to sort of push through on the housing agenda that are pretty anti-small business.

Chapter 3: How do small business owners feel about the proposed tax changes?

744.029 - 769.657 Susan Stone

Self-managed super funds are also not affected by any of this. So if somebody really wants to invest in property, they can do it through a self-managed super fund anyway. But for regular Australians, The amount of money that we as a nation invest in housing is, in my opinion, disproportionate. We have three times the amount invested in the housing market than we do in superannuation.

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769.777 - 784.232 Susan Stone

And housing, it doesn't do anything for the economy. It doesn't grow the economy. It doesn't provide jobs. It doesn't provide innovation. And if everybody's investing in housing, there's not as much savings

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784.212 - 800.567 Susan Stone

To go into business growth, there is a real misallocation of resources in the economy with way too much money going into housing and not enough money going into business development, business growth, innovation and things we need to grow productivity.

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803.77 - 820.294 Sam Hawley

Yeah, right. So you actually argue the great Australian dream, which of course has been embedded really into our culture, it's actually stopped investment in other things, in productive assets, in things like business growth.

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820.628 - 837.509 Susan Stone

Absolutely. It's a great dream to own your own home, to live in that home, to own that and enjoy all the benefits of home ownership. It's when we start, you know, buying another property and then another property and we become basically a country of landlords.

838.25 - 848.442 Sam Hawley

But how does the economy and the nation for that matter, Susan, in your view, change if we do shift away from just investing in property? What sort of nation do we become?

848.422 - 867.322 Susan Stone

Well, hopefully we become a strongly growing, innovative, new businesses coming up. We've had the same, you know, top businesses on the ASX for like 40 years. We don't have any new champions. We don't have any place where we're really looking to the future.

867.382 - 886.085 Sam Hawley

And you think, what, that these capital gains tax changes will impart... shift this investment? Yeah. Well, that's my hope. All right. But to bring the conversation full circle, what about small business? What does that achieve for the economy, taxing small business more?

886.345 - 914.018 Susan Stone

Well, businesses under $2 million will not be really impacted by these changes. I think for many small businesses, at the end of the day, we won't see huge changes in what they're paying in tax. I think we do need to invest more. We do need to innovate. You know, we'll lead to higher growth and more opportunities and, you know, more employment opportunities, more growth in the business community.

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