Joseph Daoud spent $17,500 of his own money opposing the CGT changes. He tells Dynamic Business what small business owners need to do right now.
A month ago, the Government’s CGT reform was presented as settled policy. This week, it needed multiple exemptions. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has confirmed the small business CGT concession threshold will be lifted from $2 million to $10 million, alongside flagged carve-outs for startups and a CGT discount for employee share schemes.
For Joseph Daoud, the Sydney-based economist, mortgage broker, and founder of ItsSimple.com.au, the announcement lands as vindication of a campaign he funded entirely out of his own pocket. Daoud spent $17,500 on a billboard opposing the original CGT changes and launched a national petition that gathered close to 3,000 signatures. The campaign went viral and attracted widespread media attention.
His response to this week’s announcement is measured but pointed. “A month ago, this policy was presented as complete. Today it needs multiple exemptions. The Government’s own walk-back is the clearest admission yet that the original design was flawed,” he said. “Australians should be clear about what this is. It is a start, not a finish. The Treasurer himself has said he is maintaining the intent of the budget. The core of this tax remains. The aspirational Australians who took the risk, built businesses and invested in their own country are still in the firing line.”
Why he backed it with his own money
Daoud describes his decision to self-fund the campaign as a direct response to what he saw as a fundamental misreading of who builds small businesses and what they risk to do it.
“Honestly? I was furious,” he says. “The budget hit small business owners with the CGT discount changes and called it levelling the playing field. Levelling it for who? The only people who ever built anything on that field were the ones about to get taxed for it. This budget looked at the risk-takers, the people who employ your kids and mine, and decided they were the problem.”
He did not expect the campaign to work. “I figured I’d be ignored. But we made enough noise that they moved. The threshold for small business went from $2 million to $10 million. It’s a start. There’s still plenty left to fight for.”
Daoud remains critical of the Government’s broader CGT agenda, arguing that the concessions announced this week do not address the fundamental structural problem with the original reform, and that small business owners who built value over years are still carrying disproportionate tax risk under the policy’s remaining elements.
A start, not a finish
The threshold change is significant in practical terms. Broadly, small businesses with turnover under $10 million or net assets under $6 million, plus meeting the active asset test, will now qualify for concessions they were previously excluded from. Daoud acknowledges the win while maintaining that the fight is not over.
His message to other small business owners who campaigned, signed the petition, or simply watched the debate from the sidelines is that collective pressure produced a concrete outcome and that the same pressure will be needed to address what remains. The core of the original tax, he argues, is still in place, and the Government’s stated intention to maintain the budget’s overall direction means further scrutiny of the policy’s impact on small business owners will be necessary.
Four steps for small business owners now
For small business owners trying to understand what the threshold change means for them right now, Daoud offers four practical steps.
First, check where you sit. “Odds are you now qualify. Broadly that’s turnover under $10 million or net assets under $6 million, plus the active asset test. Your accountant can sort that in about five minutes.”
Second, know your dates. The 50% discount still covers every dollar of gain up to 1 July 2027. After that it is indexation on the rest.
Third, get your paperwork in order now. “Under the new rules your cost base and your records do the heavy lifting. The tradie who kept every receipt is going to thank himself.”
Fourth, get proper advice before selling anything. “Not a bloke on TikTok. An actual accountant.”
The CGT threshold change is the most concrete outcome small business advocates have secured from what began as a deeply contested budget announcement. For Daoud, it proves that public pressure from business owners works. It also confirms, in his view, that the original policy was designed without adequate understanding of how small businesses actually build and realise value. The billboard is down. The work, he says, is not finished.
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