The National Party has announced a new Business Start policy as part of its economic recovery plan offering a support of up to $30,000 for starting new business. 

This was announced by Party Leader Judith Collins in Lower Hutt earlier today. 

“National’s BusinessStart will help Kiwis who have lost their jobs since 1 March 2020, or lose their jobs in the months ahead, to set up a small business with at least $30,000 available to help you buy kit, make sure you have some working capital, and lower your taxes in the early stages, as you start to become successful.

“The $30,000 will come from a combination of KiwiSaver savings, tax credits and taxpayers’ funds.”

Under BusinessStart, National will make available to all Kiwis who have lost their job since 1 March 2020, or who those lose their jobs in the months ahead, a $1000 voucher for them to get proper financial advice from a Chartered Accountant or Registered Financial Adviser on their ideas, and put together a viable business plan.

Once those business plans are signed off, BusinessStart recipients can access up to $20,000 of their own money from their KiwiSaver account to help get their business going and at least $10,000 in tax credits to pay GST or provisional tax when the business starts making a profit. 

Notably, the National Party had earlier in May announced a Job start policy which promised to give businesses/employers $10,000 for each full time permanent new job created within the business. 

BusinessStart would provide the basics for new businesses to get going, Collins said.

"No government ever creates jobs, you, the business owners of New Zealand, do that.

"National wants to back you, as you back yourselves and your mates to get this country working again."

"Their future KiwiSaver contributions will be tax-free until they have repaid the amount they took out.

"The second thing we will do is if you have been made redundant, we will give you the entire taxed portion of your redundancy as a tax credit with the IRD. If your redundancy is say $150,000, that could be as much as $50,000 tax credit. You will then be able to use that to pay GST or provisional tax when you start making a profit."

Collins said given all the incentives it was offering, National was sure banks would compete to give people a decent finance package.

She said running a small business was still "not for the faint-hearted" - that was why contestable business mentoring fund was available.