Latest News
Expansion Of Support For SMEs To Access Funding
| | | The Government is providing additional support to small and medium sized businesses (‘SMEs’) by expanding eligibility for the SME Recovery Loan Scheme. Specifically, in recognition of the continued economic impacts of COVID‑19, the Government will remove requirements for SMEs to have received JobKeeper during the March quarter of 2021, or to […]
Time Running Out To Register For The Jobmaker Hiring Credit
| | | The JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme’s third claim period is now open, so if a taxpayer has taken on additional eligible employees since 7 October 2020, they may be able to claim JobMaker Hiring Credit payments for their business. Eligible businesses can receive up to: $10,400 over a year for each additional […]
Labor Commits To Income Tax Cuts And Certainty On Negative Gearing
The ALP has formally announced that, if elected to Government, they will deliver “the same legislated tax relief . . . as the Morrison Government”. This means they have committed to upholding the legislated changes to personal income taxes and will also maintain the existing regimes for negative gearing and capital gains tax to […]
Changes To STP Reporting from 1 July 2021
| | | Employers should have already been reporting through Single Touch Payroll (‘STP’) unless they only have closely held payees, or they are covered by a deferral or exemption. From 1 July 2021, there have been changes to STP reporting for small employers with closely held payees and quarterly reporting for micro employers. […]
Maximum Contributions Base for Super Guarantee
The maximum super contributions base is used to determine the limit on any individual employee’s earnings base for superannuation guarantee purposes on a quarterly basis. Employers do not have to provide the minimum quarterly support for earnings above this limit. For the 2022 financial year, the maximum contributions base has increased to $58,920 (up from […]
The ‘Gigs Up’ With A New Sharing Economy Reporting Regime
| | | Treasury has released draft legislation introducing the long-awaited third party reporting regime (proposed to apply from 1 July 2022). The new regime will initially require ride-sharing and short term accommodation online platform operators to report transactions they facilitate directly to the ATO. This measure was first announced in the 2020 MYEFO (following […]
Work-related expense claims rejected by Administrative Review Tribunal (‘ART’)
The Administrative Review Tribunal (‘ART’) recently disallowed a taxpayer’s claims for many different types of work-related expenses. The taxpayer was employed full-time as an engineer, working from home two days a week. For the 2023 income year, he claimed deductions totalling over $61,000, in relation to (among other things) car expenses, travel expenses, clothing expenses, […]
Check GST credit claims before lodging BASs
Taxpayers who are registered for GST can get GST credit claims (or ‘input tax credits’) for the GST included in the price of goods and services they buy for their business. However, if they buy something for both business and private use, they need to apportion their GST credit to only claim the business use. […]
Government payments programs
The ATO is reminding taxpayers that receive government payments for delivering services under a Commonwealth program, such as healthcare, disability support or child care, that they have an obligation to: keep accurate records; and report any such income they receive in their tax return. The ATO recently advised that it would be contacting taxpayers and […]
Contractors omitting income
Through data matching, the ATO is seeing some contractors incorrectly reporting or contractors omitting income. Contractors need to report all their income in their tax return, including payments made by businesses for their contracting work. Note that, as part of the taxable payments reporting system (‘TPRS’), certain businesses must lodge a ‘Taxable payments annual report’ […]
Businesses using cash to dodge obligations
The ATO is ‘cracking down’ on businesses that use cash to dodge obligations on their tax, employer and business. Businesses that do this may: – fail to report all sales transactions and fail to issue receipts; – avoid paying GST, income tax, PAYG withholding, super guarantee, insurance and work cover protection; – report their income […]
$20,000 instant asset write-off extended
Editor: The Government recently passed legislation to extend the $20,000 instant asset write-off for small businesses by 12 months to 30 June 2026. Taxpayers should note that if their business has an aggregated annual turnover of less than $10 million, they may be able touse the instant asset write-off (‘IAWO’) to immediately deduct the business […]