The Treasurer has announced the government is cutting the quarterly pay-as-you-go (PAYG) instalment payable on 21 January 2009 or 28 February 2009 by 20 per cent for small business entities – generally those with aggregated turnover of $2 million per annum or less. 

The 20 per cent reduction applies to the instalment amount shown on the Business Activity Statement (BAS) dispatched by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in December 2008 for the quarter ending on 31 December 2008.  

However the ATO Commissioner has said that supervision and enforcement will continue notwithstanding the economy downturn.