The Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia (COSBOA) has called on the federal government to make the instant asset write-off scheme permanent and substantially increase its funding scope.
In setting out its key priorities for the upcoming 2026–27 federal budget, COSBOA renewed calls on Monday (2 February) for the federal government to establish a permanent $150,000 instant asset write-off scheme (IAWO).
As the 2026–27 federal budget looms, COSBOA urged the government to reduce the cost of doing business to establish tax settings that foster growth and jobs and to provide certainty to small businesses by making the IAWO a permanent $150,000 program.
After receiving criticism in late March 2025 for its decision not to reinstate the $20,00 IAWO in its federal budget for the financial year 2026, Labor committed in early April 2025 to extend the scheme for another year until 30 June 2026.
However, the Commercial and Asset Finance Brokers Association of Australia (CAFBA), in tandem with COSBOA, slammed Labor’s decision to temporarily extend the IAWO by one year and said it did not go far enough.
In a joint statement, the two organisations said Labor’s one-year commitment meant small businesses would be “let down by short-term sweeteners”.
The instant asset write-off allows small businesses (those with an aggregated annual turnover of less than $10 million) to immediately deduct the full cost of eligible depreciating assets.
While the ongoing legislated threshold is $1,000, the threshold has been higher than this in recent years. Since June 2023, the threshold has been for assets costing less than $20,000 (it has been inflated to $150,000 during COVID-19).
COSBOA chair Matthew Addison said on Monday that the organisation’s priorities for the 2026–27 federal budget reflected “longstanding structural pressures”, which continue to hit small businesses and “limit their capacity to invest, employ and grow”.
“Small businesses are resilient, but resilience alone cannot carry the economy forward,” Addison said.
“That means addressing the structural cost, tax and regulatory settings that shape day-to-day business decisions.”
He said providing certainty to invest was COSBOA’s “central agenda” and reiterated that cementing the IAWO as a permanent $150,000 scheme would significantly encourage small businesses to invest widely.
“Legislating a permanent $150,000 Instant Asset Write-Off would give small businesses the confidence to invest in equipment, technology and vehicles that directly improve productivity and output,” Addison said.
“If we want stronger productivity growth and more secure jobs, the policy environment has to support small businesses to invest with confidence, employ people and expand their operations.
“Small businesses make investment decisions over years, not months. Certainty in the tax system allows them to plan ahead, upgrade equipment, adopt new technology and lift their productive capacity.”
Legislation to extend the threshold was formally passed on 27 November. This formalises the fact that businesses can instantly write off assets costing less than $20,000 that are first used or installed ready for use for a taxable purpose between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026.
The extension of the $20,000 instant asset write-off was one of the Labor Party’s 2025 election campaign promises.
The IAWO is popular with small-business owners, and according to research from SME lender OnDeck Australia (conducted online in March 2025 by Octopus Group across more than 500 small-business owners Australia-wide), one-third of small-business owners would like to expand.
In their respective 2025–26 pre-budget submissions to Treasury, both COSBOA and CAFBA lobbied to increase the IAWO to $150,000.
The calls were echoed by the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA), which had recommended the scheme be made permanent in its pre-budget submission.
[Related: Instant asset write-off officially extended until June 2026]
