The federal government of Australia is set to start collection of the carbon tax in less than five weeks, but a survey found that many small- and medium-sized businesses are still confused about the tax.

The poll by software group Mind Your Own Business (MYOB) found that 42 per cent of Aussie small businesses do not understand the effect of the carbon tax on their enterprise and only 37 per cent understood its impact quite well.

Half of the respondents believed the carbon tax would have a negative effect on their businesses, one-third thought it would have no impact. Another one-tenth said the carbon tax would have a positive effect, but 5 per cent were unsure of its impact.

The bulk of businesses that were well-informed belong to the finance and insurance sectors, while those on the opposite side were from the agriculture, forestry, fishing and construction sectors.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet had admitted in a Monday interview with ABC that many small Australian businesses think they would be heavily punished by the carbon tax and felt it is an injustice that they would not receive free permits as compensation.

Previous surveys on the carbon tax in the last few years showed that except for large greenhouse gas emitters, most Australian enterprises had performed very little analysis of the impact of the initial $23 per tonne carbon price on their businesses. It includes surveys made on chief executive officers and senior business executives in 2008 by the Australian Institute of Management and another poll in April 2009 of chief executive by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

"What many don't realize is that the carbon tax could very well be a positive experience for those who take action now to research, plan ahead, health-check their business fundamentals and capitalise on the opportunities," Brisbane Times quoted MYOB CEO Tim Reed.

The software firm recently came up with the Carbon Tax Toolkit that SMEs could download. The it has facts about the carbon tax and tips how enterprises could reduce their carbon footprint to save money. One such measure is to switch off computers, printers, faxes and phone charges since most offices are not occupied for 118 hours a week.

Businesses could also seek more advice from Low Carbon Australia which is tasked with providing advice to businesses, public sector organisations and consumers on energy efficiency improvements, reduce emissions and identify carbon neutral goods and services. It will be chaired in June by Mike Rann, who was South Australian premier for a long time.

Another government agency, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), is studying how it could use Low Carbon Australia to boost energy efficiency investments when CEFC starts to operate on July 1, 2013.

CEFC would have an allocation of $10 billion and has the power to enter into long-term contracts.

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