Treasurer Scott Morrison handed down his second Federal budget last night. While there is significant discussion around infrastructure spending and changes to welfare payments, the impact on business grants and R&D Tax Incentive has been minimal, and that’s good news. For a simple one page list of new and extended grant programs read our short summary. What hasn’t changed Many of the key government grants and programs for business have remained untouched. The R&D Tax Incentive has been the subject of continued speculation, but in last night’s budget, there were no changes announced. The government is still to respond to the recommendations from the recent review of the R&D Tax Incentive, however, from a budget perspective, no news is good news. Programs such as the Entrepreneurs Program, including Accelerating Commercialisation, and Export Market Development Grant have had no changes. No other key grants have been abolished or cut either. In the main, the $40.9B of Federal Grants (as a share of the $49.1B of total business grants and assistance) has had minimal changes. Manufacturing support gets a bump The government announced last week the budget measure to establish the Advanced Manufacturing Fund. This $101.5M program has several components, most notably the $47.5M Advanced Manufacturing Growth Fund which seeks to fund up to a third of capital upgrades that drive innovation and advanced manufacturing. This applies mainly to Victoria and South Australia, however, manufacturers in other states may benefit from other elements of the program. While not a sizeable investment, the program [...]