There is nothing small about running a small business

10 June 2026

Under Australian tax law, a Small Business Entity (SBE) is generally defined as any individual, partnership, company, or trust that actively carries on a business and has an aggregated annual turnover of less than $10 million (except when offering the Small Business Capital Gains Tax concessions, where the turnover threshold introduced in September 1999 (and not indexed) is limited to $2 million).

At the same time the ATO has provided business turnover by ABN in Australia as follows:

• 27.2% of businesses have an annual turnover between $0 – $50K

• 32.1% have a turnover between $50k – $200

• 33.3% have a turnover between $200k – $2m

• 4.2% have a turnover between $2m – $5m

• 1.5% have a turnover between $5m – $10m

• 1.7% have a turnover of over $10m

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports there are 2.73 million actively trading businesses in Australia, and yet the ATO has issued 8.7 million Australian Business Numbers (ABN), so the statistics are rubbish. Let’s triple the statistics and say that if you have a business with a turnover greater than $10 million you are in the top 5% of businesses in Australia.  And extraordinarily, PrincipleFocus and nearly all the families we work with, having a turnover greater than $2 million, places us in approximately the top 20% of businesses in Australia by turnover.

Statistically, there is nothing small about a business with a turnover greater than $2 million.  And to quote Gemma Tognini in The Australian (23 May 2026), living and working in small business requires us to take “the risk, the leap of faith, minus any kind of institutional safety net. There is nothing small about running a [small business].  Everything required to succeed is big.  The courage, the risk tolerance, self belief, work ethic.  All of it big.”

Gemma’s article expresses what many of us face every day in small business:

“The pressure and responsibility of running a P&L, signing of on the payroll, dipping into cash reserves to fund expansion, navigating increasing input costs, like insurance and rent, and my favourite, payroll tax”.  I might add, managing increasing regulatory compliance, preparing budgets, managing cash flow, working with financiers, looking after our people etc.  There is “a lack of appreciation of what it takes to build something from scratch.  Something that builds value into the community; directly employs other people [and from me - supports them learn, develop, build skills and grow]; something that comes from risk grunt work, self belied and , if I can be so crude, a decent set of stones.”

I think we can all agree, whether you are running a farm business or non farm business, the last thing a small business needs is increasing government regulation, increasing taxation and further disincentives to succeed.   However in circumspect, while small business might feel underappreciated and under attack, most of it is just noise.

I have provided written advice to clients over the past few weeks:

“Keep doing those things that lead to business success, keep thinking the same thoughts push the business forward [mindset],  Keep the main thing, the main thing [Stephen Covey, 7 habits of highly effective people].  Have a clear understanding of why we do what we do and how grateful we are for that opportunity, and negate the noise.

Peter Debus is a director of PrincipleFocus, a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser.