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Recent email communications to small business owners contain misleading and inaccurate statements about the instant asset write-off measure, a tax specialist has said.
Tax expert slams NSW government over ‘sloppy’ communications on IAWO
20 May 2025
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8 minute read
Last week, the NSW government issued problematic email communication about the instant asset write-off (IAWO) incentive to the state’s small businesses.
Skye Francis, tax expert, founder and director of 2PR and a recipient of this email, told Accountants Daily that the communication was “sloppy” in its use of language and its failure to include disclaimers or advice to contact a tax professional.
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The email Francis received from the state government said: “The $20,000 instant asset write-off incentive lets you claim back 100% of a business purchase this financial year – instead of depreciating it over four years. Better still, the $20,000 limit applies per asset, so you can write off multiple eligible purchases. If you’ve been planning to buy office equipment, tools or even upgrades for your vehicle, don’t delay. Purchase and have them installed before the 30 June 2025 deadline.”
Francis noted the email included a link to the ATO website; however, it gave no detailed advice or prompt to seek professional guidance, or a disclosure that not every small business was eligible for the IAWO.
Francis said the NSW government needed to “do better” when distributing advice on such an intricate and complex area, as it was misleading and harmful.
“This area is one of the speciality areas for me. I live and breathe the instant asset write-off and the like,” she said.
“It’s obviously quite frustrating when you see the YouTube and TikTok posts out there that are pretty general and misleading to people, and it’s worse when you start seeing the government putting them out there too.”
In a post to LinkedIn, Francis shared seven key areas that she pointed out to be misleading and/or inaccurate within the communication.
The misleading points included the generalisation of the advice, the definition and requirements around a business purchase, what limit is applied per asset, upgrades to vehicles and the definition of a purchase and instalment.
The part of the email which Francis highlighted as incorrect was the claim of a four-year depreciation period.
“Not every depreciating asset is depreciated over four years. Even small businesses using s328-D do not use four years,” Francis said.
“It irked me when I saw them saying that, comparing it to depreciating over four years, because that’s just wrong. The other stuff mentioned is lazy, and that one is just plain wrong”
Francis suspected she received the communication as her business was registered with the ATO’s ABR, which the NSW government has access to and would therefore mean many other small businesses would have received the same “misleading tax advice.”
The best thing for accountants to do whose clients may have received this information was to have a discussion about the correct eligibility criteria and how different elements of the IAWO worked in reality.
“The best thing they can do is obviously having the discussion with their clients about the eligibility, and making sure that they themselves have also checked the eligibilities because there are a lot of intricacies about it,” she said.
“I suppose the key message for me is that the IAWO is not as simple as it first seems. I commend the government for flagging that there is this incentive out there for small businesses, but there’s a way to tell your small businesses about these incentives without being misleading.”
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