The Minister for Small Business and Assistant Treasurer, the Hon Kelly O’Dwyer MP, announced an implementation study will be undertaken on the ‘single business identifier’.
This measure was announced in the 2015-16 Budget’s Growing Jobs and Small Business Package, for Australian Company Numbers (ACNs) and Business Tax File Numbers (BFTNs) to be replaced with just the Australian Business Number (ABN).
The single business identifier is expected to deliver benefits to newly registered businesses, particularly incorporated small businesses, by reducing the need to use multiple identifiers with government.
The Government has undertaken consultation on the development of this policy, however recent consultations have highlighted that many subsidiary systems (outside of the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission which are implementing the measure) are reliant on current identifiers and additional time is required to adjust systems, business processes, and forms.
The Government wants to make sure the implementation is right because we understand consolidating business identifiers will be a significant change. The implementation study will examine government and private sector impacts from the measure and will be finalised in mid 2016.
The single online portal for business and company registration and computer code to enable developers to build new registration software is on-track to be implemented by mid-2016.