It costs money to start a business, and generally you cannot deduct those expenses because they are not incurred as part of running a company. Money spent to start a business is not considered as the cost of carrying on business. For example, before your company starts operating, it cannot deduct such costs as: Performing […]
Electronic data-matching is a key tool used by the ATO to check compliance. Most people are willing to meet their tax and superannuation responsibilities. However, there are a small minority of taxpayers who don’t fully meet their responsibilities. The ATO says it uses a range of measures to identify those taxpayers, including the use of […]
Source: http://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/professional-development/9168-sme-missing-out-by-not-seeking-accountants-advice The Voice of Australian Business survey, undertaken by Bentleys, shows SMEs are missing out by not taking advantage of this expert advice. The survey revealed a number of alarming statistics such as less than half of all surveyed businesses used an accountant or financial adviser to review their banking relationship in the last year. […]
Here are some useful tax tips and reminders concerning trusts: Beneficiaries Trustees should check their trust deed and make sure that they only make distributions to eligible beneficiaries. Only an eligible beneficiary can be presently entitled to income of a trust estate. If distributions are not made to eligible beneficiaries then the net (taxable) income […]
The ATO has released information on claiming deductions for mobile, home phone and internet expenses for work purposes. The following are some key points made by the ATO. Substantiating claims Taxpayers need to keep records for a four-week representative period in each income year to claim deductions of more than $50. These records may include diary entries, […]
Voluntary compliance of taxpayers is the ATO’s main goal. However, the ATO also undertakes a range of compliance activities to detect, deter and address non-compliance. If the ATO considers that a taxpayer may not be meeting certain tax obligations, or if it does not believe that a review can be sufficient, it may conduct an […]
The Treasurer has handed down his first Budget, an “election Budget”. Labor has made it clear that it will reject some of the key revenue measures announced in the Budget. A number of Bills containing important tax changes have been enacted and some other Bills have lapsed. With less than two months for an election […]
In this Special Issue we summarise the key announcements of the 2016 Federal Budget. Personal taxation Personal tax rates: small tax cut from 1 July 2016 From 1 July 2016, the 32.5% personal income tax threshold will increase from $80,000 to $87,000 in an attempt to address tax bracket creep. The Government expects this will stop around […]
Australians with a Higher Education Loan Programme (HELP) debt and/or a Trade Support Loans (TSL) debt who are moving overseas for longer than six months will need to provide the ATO with their overseas contact details within seven days of leaving the country. The requirement follows recent legislative changes. ATO Assistant Commissioner Graham Whyte has […]
CURRENCY: This issue of Client Alert takes into account all developments up to and including 13 April 2016. Tax planning There are many ways in which entities can defer income, maximise deductions and take advantage of other tax planning initiatives to manage their taxable incomes. Taxpayers should be aware that in order to maximise these […]