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06 Oct

Posted at 16:25h in News

Additional financial support for child care providers

The Prime Minister and the Minister for Education and Youth recently announced new support measures for child care providers that are impacted by extended COVID-19 lockdowns.

Child care services in Commonwealth-declared hotspots will be eligible for new fortnightly payments of 25% of their pre-lockdown revenue, and outside school hours care (OSHC) services will be eligible for fortnightly payments of 40% of pre-lockdown revenue.

This measure will apply to services seven days after the hotspot is declared, where state and territory governments have directed families to keep their children at home. Where children are still allowed to attend child care, the supports will kick in four weeks after the hotspot declaration.

The new payments will immediately benefit services in affected areas of Sydney, the ACT and Melbourne. Other services will become eligible after seven days of lockdown, with payments backdated to 23 August. The support will then be available for services that meet the criteria in any future extended lockdowns.

Payments are made available directly to providers. Families in affected areas are not required to do anything.

04 Oct

Posted at 15:07h in Business Advisory, Related Services, Tax

This year marks the beginning of annual performance tests on MySuper products, run by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). The tests were introduced as part of the Federal government’s Your Future, Your Super reforms, aiming to hold super funds to account for underperformance and enhance industry transparency. The first annual test of 76 MySuper products from various super funds or registrable superannuation entities found that 13 products failed to meet the benchmark. These products will need to notify their members of the failed test and make the improvements needed to ensure they pass next year’s test.

A new interactive online super comparison tool, YourSuper, is also now available on the ATO website and via MyGov. It displays a table of MySuper products ranked by fees and net returns (updated quarterly), and you can compare up to four MySuper products at a time in more detail.

The performance tests conducted by APRA only relate to MySuper products, which are basic super accounts without unnecessary features and fees. Registrable superannuation entities usually offer multiple products in addition to MySuper products, so don’t panic if you see the name of your super fund on the list of underperforming products. However, if you see the name of your specific product or receive a letter indicating that the fund you’re in has failed the APRA performance test, it may be time to investigate the reasons why or switch to a different product.

03 Oct

Posted at 14:42h in News, Related Services

Employers get ready – there’ll soon be an extra step involved when it comes to hiring new employees. From 1 November 2021, employers will need to determine if a new employee has a “stapled” super fund and request the details from the ATO where a new employee has not nominated a super fund.

A stapled super fund is essentially an existing super account that is linked – or “stapled” – to an individual and follows them throughout their job changes.

Currently, when a new employee starts a new job they are eligible to choose the super fund that their super guarantee contributions will go to. If they do not choose their own fund, the super contributions will be paid into the employer’s default fund. The stapling change aims to reduce unnecessary account fees by avoiding having a new super account opened every time a person starts a new job.

To ensure you’re ready for this change, check ATO online services to confirm that your business has the required access levels. You’ll need to have the “Employee Commencement Form” permission in order to request a stapled fund.

After 1 November you’ll still need to offer your eligible employees a choice of super fund and pay their super into the account they nominate – that part of your obligations doesn’t change. However, if your employee doesn’t choose a fund, you’ll need to request the stapled fund details from the ATO. In most cases, a request can be made after you’ve submitted a TFN declaration or a Single Touch Payroll (STP) pay event linking the new employee to your business.

Responses will usually be received through the online portal in minutes. The ATO will also notify the associated employee of the stapled fund request and the fund details provided.

Remember, an employer cannot provide recommendations or advice about super to its employees, unless the business is licensed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to provide financial advice. Penalties may apply if your business fails to meet the “choice of super fund” obligations.

02 Oct

Posted at 17:09h in Related Services, Tax

If the current prolonged lockdowns and economic conditions have prompted you to sell or close your business, it’s important to be aware of the need to cancel the related GST registration within a certain period, unless your business is in a specific industry or performs a specific role.

TIP: Generally, you must cancel your GST registration within 21 days if you sell or close your business. If you change your business structure, for example from a partnership structure to a company structure, you must still cancel your GST registration within 21 days, unless the old entity carries on another business.

Cancelling a GST registration will also cancel other registrations such as fuel tax credits, luxury car tax and wine equalisation tax, even if the ABN is not cancelled. If you’re registered for PAYG, PAYG instalments or have FBT obligations, you will need to keep lodging business activity statements (BASs) even if you cancel your GST registration.

While you can usually cancel your GST registration from a date you choose (which should be the last day you want your previous business to be registered), you cannot cancel the registration retrospectively if you were still operating on a GST-registered basis after that date. Similarly, if you choose a cancellation date and then continue to operate on a GST-registered basis, you will not be able to cancel the registration.

When you cancel your business’s GST registration, you’ll need to lodge any outstanding BASs and complete a final GST activity statement which should include all sales, purchases and importations made in the final tax period. This should include the sale of the business, sale of any of business assets, adjustments for any assets held after cancellation, and/or any other adjustments. If you operate on a cash basis, all the sales and purchases that still need to be attributed from a previous tax period must be recorded.

If you’re cancelling a GST registration because the business has been restructured, sold or closed, the associated ABN must also be cancelled. If a company was not restructured, sold or closed, but simply no longer carries on a business, the GST registration must still be cancelled but there’s a choice to keep the ABN registration active.

01 Oct

Posted at 13:13h in News

Australian Capital Territory

Expanded and additional support will be available for businesses affected by COVID-19 lockdowns, in the form of two grant programs:

  • COVID-19 Business Support Grants: An additional COVID-19 Business Grant Extension payment of $10,000 for employing businesses and $3,750 for non-employing businesses will be available to businesses eligible for the existing Business Support Grants and in industries “still significantly impacted by the health restrictions”.
  • COVID-19 Tourism, Accommodation Provider, Arts and Events and Hospitality Grants: Further one-off grants will be available in October to eligible businesses in the tourism, accommodation provider, arts and events and hospitality industries.

Queensland

Federal and state funded emergency support packages worth $52.8 million will be available to assist Queensland businesses suffering due to the NSW–Queensland border restrictions, and to provide targeted support to tourism and hospitality businesses facing significant hardship. These special hardship grants will be available from mid-October.

South Australia

The COVID-19 Tourism and Hospitality Support Grant will be available for businesses in eligible tourism and hospitality sectors, and other sectors such as performing arts, creative artists, taxis and car rental, that have already received the COVID-19 Additional Business Support Grant.

There is also a new COVID-19 Business Hardship Grant for certain employing businesses that haven’t been eligible for previous business grant support since July 2021.

In addition, the SA government is increasing its Major Events Support Grant, to provide up to $100,000 for large cancelled or postponed events where more than 10,000 attendees were expected.

Tasmania

The existing Business Support Package will be boosted from $20 million to $50 million, with grants of up to $50,000 available to eligible businesses across two funding rounds.

In addition, the Tasmanian government will offer eligible tourism and hospitality industry businesses payroll tax relief, waived vehicle registration and passenger transport accreditation fees and waived Parks & Wildlife license fees. Businesses can apply immediately.

Victoria

New regulations have been made to provide relief under the Commercial Tenancy Relief Scheme for small and medium-sized commercial tenants struggling with rent payments. Eligibility has been broadened, and businesses will get relief in the form of a rent reduction proportionate to the amount of turnover lost due to COVID-19.

The Victorian Small Business Commission will provide information so that landlords and tenants can negotiate an agreement, and free mediation for those who need assistance.

Land tax relief will be available to help landlords that are doing the right thing by eligible tenants, and eligible small landlords can apply for payments from a $20 million hardship fund.

Western Australia

WA tourism businesses impacted by COVID-19 will soon be able to apply for funding support under a new joint Commonwealth–State program. About 3,500 businesses will be eligible for grants of up to $10,000, including tourism operators, accommodation providers and travel agents.

04 Sep

Posted at 09:49h in News, Related Services, SMSF

The government’s long-slated “flexibility in superannuation” legislation is finally law. This means from 1 July 2021, individuals aged 65 and 66 can now access the bring-forward arrangement in relation to non-concessional super contributions. The excess contributions charge will be removed for anyone who exceeds their concessional contributions cap, and individuals who received a COVID-19 super early release amount can now recontribute it without hitting their non-concessional cap.

Previously, if you made super contributions above the annual non-concessional contributions cap, you could automatically access future year caps if you were under 65 at any time in the financial year.

The bring-forward arrangement allows you to make non-concessional contributions of up to three times the annual non-concessional contributions cap in that financial year.

Tip: For the 2021 income year, the non-concessional contributions cap is $110,000, which means that individuals aged 65 and 66 can now access a cap of up to $330,000.

Previously, individuals who exceeded their concessional contributions cap would have to pay the excess contributions charge (around 3%) as well as the additional tax due when excess contributions were re-included in their assessable income. However, people who exceed their cap on or after 1 July 2021 will no longer pay the charge, but will still receive a determination and be taxed at their marginal tax rate on any excess concessional contributions amount, less a 15% tax offset to account for the contributions tax already paid by their super fund.

Recontributions of COVID-19 early released super

Under the COVID-19 early release measures, individuals could apply to have up to $10,000 of their super released during the 2019–2020 financial year and another $10,000 released between 1 July and 31 December 2020. Between 20 April 2020 and 31 December 2020, the ATO received 4.78 million applications for early release, totalling $39.2 billion worth of super.

Not everyone who applied to have super released ended up needing to use it once the government ramped up its financial support programs. From 1 July 2021, people who received a COVID-19 super early release amount can recontribute to their super up to the amount they released, and those recontributions will not count towards their non-concessional contributions cap. The recontribution amounts must be made between 1 July 2021 and 30 June 2030 and super funds must be notified about the recontribution either before or at the time of making the recontribution.

03 Sep

Posted at 09:33h in News, Related Services

The government is seeking to legislate compulsory reporting of information for sharing economy platforms in order to more easily monitor the compliance of participants, while at the same time reducing the need for ATO resources.

As the sharing economy becomes more prevalent and fundamentally reshapes many sectors of the economy, the government is scrambling to contain the fall-out. While there no standard definition of the term “sharing economy”, it’s usually taken to involve two parties entering into an agreement for one to provide services, or to loan personal assets, to the other in exchange for payment. Examples of platforms include Uber, Airbnb, Car Next Door, Menulog, Airtasker and Freelancer, to name a few.

With the rapid expansion of various sharing economy platforms, the government’s Black Economy Taskforce has noted that without compulsory reporting, it is difficult for the ATO to gain information on compliance without undertaking targeted audits. Putting formal reporting requirements in place will align Australia with international best practice.

The government has now released draft legislation for consultation to define the scope of compulsory reporting requirements in order to ensure integrity of the tax system and reduce the compliance burden on the ATO.

This new compulsory reporting regime would apply to all operators of an electronic service, including websites, internet portals, apps, gateways, stores and marketplaces. Any platforms that allow sellers and buyers to transact will be required to report information on certain transactions. However, the reporting requirement will generally not apply if the transaction only relates to supply of goods where ownership of the goods is permanently changed, where title of real property is transferred, or the supply is a financial supply.

Based on the draft legislation, platform operators will be required to report transactions that occur on or after 1 July 2022 if they relate to a ride-sourcing or a short-term accommodation service, unless an exemption applies. From 1 July 2023 all other categories of sharing economy platforms will be required to report, unless an exemption applies.

Tip: It’s expected that only the aggregate or total transactions relating to a seller over the reporting period will need to be provided; that is, information will not need to be provided on a transactional basis.

The initial reporting is expected to be biannual (1 July to 31 December, and 1 January to 30 June) with electronic service operators required to report the relevant information by 31 January and 31 July respectively.

02 Sep

Posted at 09:28h in Related Services, Tax

This tax time, the ATO is again closely monitoring claims in relation to rental properties. The ATO has data-matching programs in place that collect detailed information about properties and owners for income years all the way from 2018–2019 to the 2022–2023. These programs expand the rental income data collected directly from third-party sources, including sharing economy platforms, rental bond authorities and property managers.

In the 2019–2020 financial year over 1.8 million taxpayers owned rental properties and claimed $38 billion in deductions. While most taxpayers do the right thing and are able to justify their claims, the ATO notes that over 70% of the 2019–2020 returns selected for review of rental information needed adjustments.

Tip: The ATO guidance makes it clear there’s no intention to penalise property owners whose rental income or property costs have been negatively affected by COVID-19. We can help you report the right information in your return this tax time.

The most common mistake that rental property owners and holiday homeowners make is not declaring all their income, and their capital gains from selling property.

Another area of concern involves claims for interest charges on personal loans. For example, if you take out a loan to buy a rental property and rent it out at market rates, the interest on the loan is deductible. However, if you redraw money from that mortgage for personal use (eg to buy a car or pay off the mortgage of the house you’re living in), then you can’t claim interest on that part of the loan.

You should also be careful when claiming deductions for capital works. While the cost of repairs for wear and tear are immediately deductible if you’re replacing or fixing an existing item (eg a broken toilet), the cost of upgrading the property or areas of the property is considered capital works and any deductions need to be spread over a number of years.

01 Sep

Posted at 09:16h in News, Related Services

Phase 2 coming soon

The ATO is expanding the information that businesses send through Single Touch Payroll (STP). From 1 January 2022, most employers will be required to send additional information such as the commencement date of employment and cessation date of employment for employees, their reasons for leaving employment and work type. The basic information about salary and wages and super liability information in Phase 1 of the STP rollout will also be further drilled down in Phase 2, moving away from just reporting the gross amounts.

According to the ATO, the Phase 2 report will also include a six-character tax treatment code for each employee. The code will be automatically generated by the STP software and is an abbreviated way of outlining the factors that can influence amounts withheld from payments.

STP was originally introduced in 2016 as a way for employers to report their employees’ tax and super information to the ATO in real time. Most employers, regardless of the number of their employees, were required to start reporting from 1 July 2021.

Employers with a withholding payer number (WPN) have until 1 July 2022 to start reporting payments through STP, and small employers that make payments to closely held payees are exempt from reporting these payees through STP for the 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 financial years.

While the Phase 2 increase in information will be automatically taken care of in most STP software solutions, the increased stratification of reporting may require you to pay more attention to your business’s payroll, to ensure all the information you enter into the system is correct.

Tip: Not sure how the STP Phase 2 changes might apply to your business? Contact us today for more information.

07 Aug

Posted at 11:16h in News

If your business or employment income has been affected by recent COVID-19 related lockdowns in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, financial help is available from both the state and Federal governments. Depending on the length of the lockdown, businesses may be eligible to receive a co-funded small and medium business support payment, as well as various cash grants.

Federal support

For small and medium businesses, depending on the length of the lockdown, the Federal government will fund up to 50% small and medium business support payments to be administered by the states.

Non-employing businesses (eg sole traders) will also be eligible.

The Federal government will also seek to make various state business grants tax exempt and provide support for taxpayers through the ATO with reduced payment plans, waiving interest charges on late payments and varying instalments on request.

For individuals, the COVID-19 Disaster Payment will be available in any state or territory where a lockdown has been imposed under a state public health order.

New South Wales

Eligible businesses will be able to claim state government grants under the business grants program. Smaller and micro businesses that experience a specified decline will be eligible for a payment per fortnight of restrictions.

Payroll tax waivers will be available for certain businesses, as well as payroll tax deferrals and interest free payment plans.

Commercial, retail and residential landlords who provide rental relief to financially distressed tenants will be able to claim land tax relief. Residential landlords that are not liable for land tax may be able to claim a capped grant where they reduce rent for tenants.

The NSW government will also be protecting tenants with a short-term eviction moratorium for rental arrears
where a residential tenant suffers a loss of income due to COVID-19 and meets a range of other criteria. There will also be no recovery of security bonds, lockouts or evictions of impacted retail/commercial tenants prior to mediation.

Victoria

Businesses in Victoria will be provided with cash grants from the state government. These payments will be automatically made to eligible businesses and sole traders to minimise delays. The state government estimates that up to 90,000 business that previously received assistance payments in relation to previous lockdowns will receive the new cash grants.

South Australia

Small and medium-sized businesses that suffer a significant loss of income or were forced to close as a result of South Australia’s seven-day lockdown are being offered an emergency cash grant as part of a $100 million business support package. The package also includes a new cash grant for eligible small businesses that don’t employ staff.

In addition, the SA government will provide fully-funded income support payments for eligible workers in regional SA who live or work outside of the Commonwealth-declared “hotspot” local government areas, and are therefore not entitled to the Federal COVID-19 Disaster Payment.

05 Aug

Posted at 10:56h in News

From 1 July 2021, the rate of super guarantee increased from 9.5% to 10%. Businesses using manual payroll processes should be careful that this change doesn’t lead to unintended underpayment of super, which may attract penalties.

The new rate of 10% is the minimum percentage now required by law, but employers may pay super at a higher rate under an award or agreement.

Most payroll and accounting systems will have incorporated the increase in their super rate, but it’s always good to check. If your business is still using a manual process to pay your employees, you’ll need to work out how much super to pay under the new rate.

Tip: The rate you should use to calculate your employee’s super contributions depends on the date that you are paying your employees – it doesn’t matter if the work was performed in a different quarter. The new rate applies to all super payments made after 1 July 2021.

This latest increase to 10% is by no means the last time the super guarantee rate will change over the next few years. From 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023 (ie next financial year) the rate will increase to 10.5%, followed by another 0.5% point increase to 11% in the 2023–2024 financial year. So, employers will need to be on their toes to make sure the right amount of super guarantee is paid for the next few years.

04 Aug

Posted at 10:32h in News, Tax

Have you made donations either through workplace giving or salary sacrifice arrangements with your employer? If so, and you want to claim a deduction in your tax return, it’s important to know that the tax treatment differs depending on which method you used to make the donation.

Essentially, workplace giving is a streamlined way for employees to regularly donate to charities and deductible gift recipients (DGRs). Usually a fixed portion of your salary is deducted from your pay each pay cycle and your employer forwards the donation on to the DGR. However, the amount of your gross salary remains the same and, depending on your employer’s payroll systems, the amount of tax you pay each pay period may or may not be reduced to take into account the donation.

On the other hand, under a typical salary sacrificing donation arrangement, you agree to have a portion of your salary donated to a DGR in return for your employer providing you with benefits of a similar value. Your gross salary is reduced by the salary sacrificed amount and the amount of tax you pay each pay period will be reduced. Your employer makes the donation to the DGR.

If you’ve made a donation under workplace giving, you can claim a deduction in your tax return. This is regardless of whether or not your employer reduced the amount of tax you paid each pay cycle to account for the amount of the donation. Your employer will give you a letter or email stating the total amount donated to DGRs, and the financial year in which the donations were made. Alternatively, your employer will provide the total amount of donations you made for the year in your tax time payment summary, under the “Workplace giving” section.

If you’ve made a donation to a DGR under a salary sacrifice arrangement, however, you’re not entitled to claim a deduction in your tax return, since it’s your employer that is making the donation to the DGR – not you.

If you make donations outside the workplace, remember that for a donation to be deductible it must be made to a DGR and truly be a gift or donation of $2 or more. You can still claim a deduction if you receive a token item in recognition of your donation (eg a lapel pin, wristband or sticker).

Tip: It’s important to note that many crowdfunding campaigns and sites are not run by DGRs, so any donations made to those causes should be carefully examined before claiming them – it’s likely they won’t be deductible.