The Australian Taxation Office has released a 32-page online printable PDF guide - GST for small business - to help you understand GST obligations and taxes. Hard copy printed versions can be ordered.

Grants of between $5000 and $15,000 are available for small businesses to provide family friendly work arrangements. The Fresh Ideas for Work and Family funding can be used to help meet the set-up costs of family friendly arrangements that suit the individual needs of the business. Applications for the current funding round close on Friday 24 April 2009.

The deadline for submission of applications for registration for the R&D Tax Concession for the 2007-08 income year for June balancing companies is Thursday 30 April 2009, 5pm. The R&D Tax Concession allows companies to deduct up to 125% of qualifying expenditure incurred on R&D activities when lodging their corporate tax return. A 175% Incremental (Premium) Tax Concession and R&D Tax Offset are also available in certain circumstances.

Australian Social Trends uses statistics to paint a picture of Australian society, and features articles on Australia's ageing population, future population trends, household debt, trends in superannuation coverage, household work and households and renewable energy. It is the first of four major articles for 2009 from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Written submissions on proposed reforms to Australia's intellectual property system are being called for by the Australian Government. Proposed reforms are designed to help Australian innovators take their inventions to a global marketplace and encourage foreign investors to bring their new technology to Australia. Information on the proposed reforms will be contained in a series of papers, the first two being Getting the Balance Right and Exemptions to Patent Infringement. The closing date for submissions is Friday 8 May 2009.

The Australian Government's $20 million Clean Energy Innovation Centre offers a range of hands-on services to small and medium businesses in the clean energy sector. These include free business reviews and supporting grants to help boost productivity. There is also the opportunity to obtain up to $20,000 in funding to improve implement improvements.

It has been estimated that nanotechnology use in industry will be conservatively worth $30 billion by 2015, and will be used by every single manufacturing sector. An online webinar on the uses of nanotechnology in industry will be held on Wednesday 29 April 2009, from 12.30-2pm. Click above to register.

About 200 corporations have conducted energy efficiency assessments under the Australian Government's Energy Efficiency Opportunities program. Their experiences and lessons learnt can be shared and discussed at free workshops in May in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

Professional Advice and Planning Grants of up to $5500 are available to drought-affected farm businesses for advice such as a farm business viability assessment, drought management and recovery plan or to obtain financial and agronomic advice. Applications close on Friday 12 June 2009.

Recent AusIndustry announcements

Applications for $20,000 Ethanol Distribution Program grants must be received by Thursday 30 April 2009, 5pm, for service stations that have completed an eligible upgrade to enable them to sell E10 petrol, and have achieved their E10 sales target. Service station owners or operators who think they may qualify should call the AusIndustry hotline on 13 28 46 or click above.

Up to $83 million will be provided to early stage start-up companies under the Australian Government's Innovation Investment Follow-on Fund. More than 20 venture capital fund managers licensed by the Commonwealth under existing programs may be offered up to $83 million in follow-on funding, and they in turn will invest in innovative firms to bring promising new technologies and services to market.

AusIndustry project highlights

Queensland company, The Biofuel Partnership, has used a $500,000 matching dollar-for-dollar grant from the Climate Ready Program to help it create the BioCube, which is a community's own green fuel station capable of providing up to 400 people with a sustainable source of affordable clean energy. The company also accessed the R&D Tax Offset component of the R&D Tax Concession, which was worth $190,000 for the $1.5 million they spent developing the BioCube.

Queensland company Cheeta Australia used $64,000 in Commercialising Emerging Technologies funding to access a private sector business adviser, who helped the company get its automated, self-loading hand truck to market. As Cheeta's hand truck takes the hard work out of heavy lifting, the COMET adviser helped take the hard work out of Cheeta's need to attract investors, source manufacturers, develop an intellectual property strategy, structure a company board and undertake market research.

Queensland company Trevilyan Research found by registering for the R&D Tax Concession the costs to customers could be lowered. The R&D Tax Concession made perfect sense for Trevilyn when they invested big money on research and devlopment work. One such project where that happened was Trevilyan's Multiplanter, a 36-metre monster which Queensland farmer John Coggan used to sow 905 hectares of wheat in 24 hours - slashing the world record.