3rd Feb 2021 1:05 PM The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has launched a probe into the federal government s key coronavirus support measure JobKeeper. Overnight, the ANAO announced an audit into the Australian Taxation Office s handling of the wage subsidy scheme over the pandemic. The audit will focus on the tax office s ability to enforce the rules, monitoring and reporting and measures to protect the program s integrity from fraud and false claims. JobKeeper at the beginning of the pandemic supported workers with a $1500 fortnightly payment, which has been reduced to $1000 and $650 for employees working less than 20 hours. Federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh has been calling for the Auditor-General to review the scheme, which has been available to small businesses and some large commercial groups such as Harvey Norman, Premier Investments and Qantas.
2 ASX 200 shares to buy for growth
Tristan Harrison | February 3, 2021 5:38pm |
More on:
There are some
S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) shares that continue to generate growth despite all of the impacts from COVID-19.
Here are two of the ASX 200 shares generating growth and could be worth looking at:
Wesfarmers is largely a retail conglomerate that runs various major retailers such as Bunnings, Officeworks, Catch, Kmart and Target.
During this difficult COVID-19 pandemic period, the department store businesses have been struggling with lower foot traffic going into the stores. However, online sales across the business has been booming to help the overall picture.
Firms reporting big profits are under pressure to repay funds received in the $90 billion JobKeeper scheme, but the Prime Minister says he won’t change the rules.
Companies that initially claimed jobkeeper but did not need the payment to survive have come under increasing pressure to hand the money back.
So far, companies that have returned the subsidy include the Super Retail Group, Toyota and pizza chain Domino’s.
Leigh has poured pressure on other companies to follow suit, including the Premier Investments group controlled by the retail billionaire Solomon Lew, which received almost $70m in jobkeeper after an initial fall in trade that was later eclipsed by a 30% surge in profit.
Premier is among companies that received jobkeeper and then paid dividends to shareholders – in its case, about $57m, of which $24.25m flowed to Lew.
Tide goes out: Small businesses under pressure as insolvency threat mounts
Normal text size
Advertisement
After losing nearly half of her customers in the coronavirus lockdown in March last year, Sydney small business owner Shirley Sun was starting to think her only option would be to shut down for good.
Her Chatswood-based fitness studio, Leap Health and Wellbeing, had never been quieter, hurt further by its reliance on inner-city office workers. “I was potentially looking at putting my business into administration. It was really difficult and challenging,” she says.
Shirley Sun in her pilates studio.
Credit:Cole Bennetts
Thankfully, after eight months of wrangling with her landlord, Sun has finally renegotiated the terms of her lease and gained rent relief, meaning her business will live on.