Employees who work from home can claim limited deductions against their personal tax for some expenses incurred at home. The ATO has just changed how you calculate and support those deductions. In short, from now on you must have evidence of your expenses and hours worked from home, even for the fixed rate method.
The Personal Services Income restrictions for small service providers, contractors and consultants have been around for more than 20 years. Recent ATO guidance expands on how you have to acquire an “unrelated client” so you qualify as a business. Just having a social media presence won’t avoid PSI issues.
When inflation hits your profits, all businesses need to review their costs, their prices and the structure of their business, or risk going backwards.
The ATO asks for PAYG Instalments when a business makes a profit or gets investment income in the previous year, or when individuals get investment income. The ATO estimates what the likely profit or investment income will be based on that previous year (so long as it is over a threshold), and asks you to prepay a fraction of that estimate every quarter. That quarterly payment is your PAYG Instalment.
For clients who aren’t immersed in business, sometimes the names of the taxes they pay can be confusing. Especially when so many of them start with PAYG, and when wage and salary earners may have only met personal PAYG Income Tax. So, here’s a little intro to all the PAYGs.
The October 2022 Federal Budget announced on Tuesday night was the second for 2022, and represents the new Government drawing a line under the previous government’s policies. The Budget itself did not present many substantial reforms or initiatives.
Your business accounts – profit, cashflow, budget, balance sheet and other reports – are a snapshot of your business. That snapshot should give you the tools to understand what is happening, where it’s not working, and what you need to do. That isn’t always what happens. Getting the most out of your financial information is where a vCFO can help.
ASIC has moved to prevent people using false Company Director identities to rip off customers, employees, subcontractors, lenders, and of course, the ATO. So all Company Directors have to have a registered identity. But time’s running out on Director IDs for existing Directors.
When you speak to us (or other accountants), you probably hear a lot about profits and margins. When you go to seminars or read about business, you probably get bombarded with different names for profits and margins. If you find all that hard to follow, this is a simple guide to profit terms, how they fit together, and how you can use them to run your business better.
Profit is the lifeblood of your business. If you’re aren’t making a profit, eventually you won’t survive. So if you don’t know if you’re making a profit or loss, you’re living dangerously.