Take out a life insurance policy on your partner’s life so that you have funds available to acquire his/her interest in the business if they pass away. The proceeds of a life insurance policy are ...

Directors of a trading company are subject to personal risk from statutory penalties from mining, occupational health and safety, environmental, PAYG withholding and superannuation guarantee legislation. Rather than holding the company shares personally...

We know it’s basic but make sure you get three quotes for all purchases. At the very least it will keep your supplier on their toes and will provide further...

A Tribunal ruling (previously reported in September 2011 taxInsight) found that the CEO of a services company was indeed conducting a business of share trading on a part-time basis. This decision allowed for claiming deductions because of the drop in value of shares during the global financial crisis and further clarified the factors to consider when assessing whether an activity is a business or mere academic pursuit or hobby ...

The Tax Office have an employee/contractor decision-making tool on their website and are using it during the field visits to determine whether an arrangement is true contracting or actually an employment circumstance. They say they have detected false contracting arrangements in call centres, transport and logistics, retail, education ...

We have previously reported on this case between Mr and Mrs Clark and the Tax Office. The High Court has refused to hear an appeal by the Tax Office. This case had previously been found in favour of the Clarks by ...

In a new episode of the Tax Office/Myer float saga, the Federal Court granted orders for the Tax Office to serve a demand for $739 million on an Australian Director after the Tax Office made out a case that he was the local representative of a Dutch and Cayman Islands companies in the TPG group ...

The dwelling in which you live will be exempt from CGT if you own it. The term dwelling includes a flat, home unit, caravan, houseboat or other mobile home and includes the land on which it is built up to a maximum of 2 ha. If your spouse is living permanently separate and apart from you, you would each be entitled to ...

New laws cleared Parliament in August. These provide a 45% refundable tax offset for businesses with group turnover less than $20 million undertaking research and development activities that meet the new eligibility criteria. A nonrefundable 40% offset is available for larger businesses including ...

The lenient approach to debt collection taken by the Tax Office during the Global Financial Crisis has been discarded and replaced with a new hard-line. This follows a blowout in outstanding tax debts from 5% of revenue to 11% ($15 billion) last year. The new approach includes the early instigation of garnishee notices and windup proceedings ...

The Tax Office interest charge for the October-December 2011 quarter have been released. GIC annual rate is 11.86% or ...

Super funds will now be able to use borrowed funds to repair a property purchased with a limited recourse borrowing arrangement. The Tax office has reversed its position on this in a draft ruling. Further, the super fund can use other monies (not borrowed) to ...

Chief Executive Women, an organisation of 200 female corporate highflyers including Ita Buttrose and Heather Ridout, called for the government Tax Forum … to review the opportunity and cost of tax deductibility of child care for Australia...

The Government and Tax Office have kindly provided yet another layer of bureaucracy for small businesses operating through trusts. Trustees are now obliged to withhold tax from distributions to beneficiaries if those beneficiaries have not provided their tax file number (TFN) and other personal details ...

At the time of writing, there is continuing concern about the Eurozone debacle and the effect this may have on the banking system internationally. Will there be a global recession or worse? Will this bring China’s current insatiable appetite for our raw materials to a halt?

Trust taxation will change from July 2013 after a lengthy consultation process on new laws. A Consultation Paper on the Reform of Taxation of Trust was released in November and the Assistant Treasurer has set out the following tentative timetable for implementation...

Small businesses (turnover less then $2 million) will be able to claim an extra initial deduction of $5,000 for a car, truck, van, utility, motor bike or scooter when...

Asking lots of good questions allows you to understand the current situation for the customer, work out whether she is an appropriate client, establish rapport and foster good communication...