The ATO’s Small business newsroom email service and associated newsroom web pages on the ato.gov.au website provide taxation and superannuation information and news to Australian small businesses in an easily accessible and contemporary format. The newsroom service, introduced in 2014, delivers a regular email to subscribers that is designed to be quickly scanned for items of interest, with links to associated articles on the website.
Research into small business’ perceptions of the newsroom was conducted in 2015 and again in 2016. In 2017 the ATO commissioned ChantLink to conduct a third round of qualitative and quantitative research.
The research aimed to track small business experience with the service as in previous years. In addition to this, questions were added to help understand small businesses’ relationship with tax practitioners and how tax practitioners who subscribed to the service used it.
Small business newsroom service users:
The majority of users were satisfied (satisfied or very satisfied) with the Small business newsroom email (77% of small business, 72% of tax practitioner subscribers).
Small business newsroom service users were satisfied (satisfied or very satisfied) with the website (78% of small business users). Tax practitioner users were also satisfied (satisfied or very satisfied), albeit not as highly as business, 58% of tax practitioner users).
Yet to use the service: A high proportion of those small businesses previously unaware of the service indicated that they were likely to use either:
The Small business newsroom email (51% of small business and 68% of tax practitioner subscribers)
The website (50% of small business and 54% of tax practitioner subscribers).