The first pieces of the Government's Jobs and Growth Plan were announced this morning.

They included tax changes worth $480 million over four years targeted at small and medium business.

The changes aimed to allow business to hold on to money longer but also make returns easier.

Elements were:

* Reducing from this year until 2010 the size of provisional tax repayments business have to make. At the moment business have to factor in 5 percent growth but that will be dropped for those years. Transitional provisional taxpayers rates reduce by 5 percentage points also.

* The charge for underpayments reduces from 14.24 percent to 9.73 percent. The rate for overpayments will reduce from 6.66 to 4.23 percent.

* The GST payments threshold will be raised from $1.3 million to $2m. That means more businesses will only have to file an account for GST when payment from invoices is actually received.

* The GST registration threshold will be raised from $40,000 to $60,000.

* Businesses with $10,000 or less of business-related legal expenditure will be able to fully deduct the expense in the year it was incurred, whether it was capital spending or not.

* The PAYE monthly filing and payment threshold will be raised from $100,000 to $500,000, allowing more employers to file PAYE returns and pay once a month instead of twice.

* The fringe benefit tax (FBT) threshold will be raised from $100,000 to $500,000 allowing more employers to file returns and pay annually instead or quarterly.

* Fewer businesses will have to return FBT on minor benefits when the value of minor fringe benefits that can be provided to employees without attracting FBT is raised from $200 to $300 per quarter per employee and from $15,000 to $22,500 a year per employer.

* The FBT interest rate for low-interest, employment-related loans will be lowered from 10.9 percent to 8.05 percent.

* Some other thresholds, relating to accrual expenditure adjustments, (such as for certain prepaid advertising/travel/lease costs) will also be raised.

* Some changes to simplify tax that are part of a bill already before Parliament will be fast-tracked.

Changes that need to be enacted will be included in a taxation bill and be effective from April 1 or the 2009-10 income year. The changed provisional tax penalties will be effective from March 1 and the new FBT rate for loans will play from the start of this year.

Other non-tax related changes included:

* Beefed up assistance for business including an enhanced 0800 help line operating 24-hours a day; free business health checks and a mentoring service.

* Changes to the Disputes Tribunal aimed at reducing the amount of time small businesses spent in District Court battles. The claim levels of $7500 and $12,000 would be increased to $15,000 and $20,000.

* The export credit scheme will be changed to give greater access to short-term trade credit insurance, which is used as a guarantee to banks that an exporter will be paid.

Previously the scheme only provided money for contracts with payment terms of more than a year but shorter periods will now be able to be covered. This means exporters will not have to turn down orders because of a lack of short-term credit insurance.

* Lastly the Government has directed and the State Services Commission has agreed to pay bills promptly or early to help small and medium businesses with cash flow.