Small businesses in Albury and Wodonga paid an extra $7.9 million in accounting fees and $6.3 million in staff costs to administer the GST and comply with the Federal Government’s GST requirements.

According to CSU business researcher Ms Sue Petzke, nearly 70 per cent of businesses that responded to the survey stated they incurred higher accounting fees because of the GST, averaging over $3 600 each in the past year.

“Nearly 30 per cent of businesses incurred extra staff costs, averaging over $6 800 for the year,” she said.
“The GST has also cost business people in time. Respondents to the survey estimated they spent an extra 11 hours each month on GST paperwork.”

Only six per cent of respondents said the GST had saved time or money in their business and of these, 80 per cent said they were in favour of the GST before and after it was introduced.

“On the other hand, nearly half the respondents stated that the GST had hindered their business,” fellow CSU researcher Daniel Murphy said.

Mr Murphy was concerned at these results as “although the Federal Government claimed that the New Tax System would benefit small businesses through better management, improved cash flow and simplified tax procedures, it is not evident here”.

Ms Petzke and Mr Murphy were joined by fellow CSU School of Business lecturers Gerry Voll and Bill Robbins, all based on CSU’s Albury-Wodonga Campus on the NSW-Victorian border, in investigating how the GST and workplace reforms have affected local small businesses.

They obtained their results through a comprehensive telephone survey of nearly 2 000 small and medium sized businesses in Albury-Wodonga carried out in September and October.