What you need to know about the beefed-up director penalty regime

5 May 2019

Being a director of a company, as with any elevation of status, is a role that also brings with it added responsibilities and duties.

Company directors need to keep in mind that the Corporations Act holds directors personally liable for many of the legal and financial obligations expected from a company. These include, but are not limited to, any debts incurred if the company becomes insolvent and losses arising from a director’s lapse of duty.

The corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), says failing to perform your duties as a director can, in the more extreme cases, lead to being found guilty of a criminal offence with a penalty of up to a maximum of $200,000, or imprisonment for up to five years, or both.

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The approach to tax when you’re working from home

25 April 2019

If you produce assessable income at home, or some of it, and you incur expenses from using that home as your “office” or “workshop”, the ATO will generally allow that a taxpayer could be in a position to be able to claim some expenses and make some deductions. Otherwise the ATO takes the view that expenditure associated with a person’s place of residence is more likely to be of a private nature.

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Single touch payroll rollout for smaller employers

6 April 2019

A major change in the way employers report the tax and super information for their employees to the ATO has been on the way for a while now. The single touch payroll (STP) system started to be rolled out gradually from 1 July 2018 for what the ATO refers to as “substantial” employers (those with 20 or more staff). Recently passed legislation extends STP to all employers, regardless of the number of staff, from 1 July this year.

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When valuations of property are important for tax

25 March 2019

There are times when getting a valuation becomes necessary, especially to estimate the cost of transactions that are not arm’s-length or when no actual cash changes hands.  A common example of this is in respect of property, and especially for transactions when a valuation is necessary for tax purposes.

For example, let’s say that Humbert transfers his rental property to his daughter Dolores for no consideration. The tax law, specifically the CGT rules, requires that the transfer be made at “market value”. If Humbert has held the property for a lengthy period of time and the property has increased significantly in value at the time of transfer, then he could be up for quite a hefty CGT bill, even with the general discount. This is so even though he has not received a single cent by gifting his property.

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Rental travel expenses mostly off the table

6 March 2019

The ATO recently highlighted significant non-compliance with the rules prohibiting taxpayers claiming travel expenses related to residential rental properties.
Late last calendar year, the ATO revealed that it had identified 26,000 taxpayers who had incorrectly claimed deductions for travel to rental properties during tax time 2018, despite recent changes to the law in this area.

New rules, introduced just over a year ago (and therefore perhaps not ingrained in many people’s minds), mean that investors can no longer claim travel expenses relating to inspecting, maintaining or collecting rent for a residential rental property as deductions, unless they are carrying on a rental property business or are an excluded entity.

This measure was introduced to address concerns that some taxpayers were claiming travel deductions without correctly apportioning costs where there was a private component to the travel, or claimed travel costs that were exclusively for private purposes.

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Travel expense claims: the term ‘itinerant’ needs clarity

5 February 2019

Being able to make claims for work-related travel expenses is generally an enviable deduction situation, and one that a good many taxpayers would like to achieve — especially given that the status of being deemed an “itinerant” worker brings with it an expectation of a lot of travel kilometres.

While itinerant work is generally held to be undertaken by certain trades or classifications of workers, such as those working in primary production or mining, “itinerancy” can equally apply to any individual worker subject to their employment satisfying certain characteristics and criteria.

Broadly, the definition of “itinerant” refers to shifting places of work. However, as the term is used by the ATO in determining eligibility to make claims for certain travel expenses, it is important to get it right.
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Self-employed? You could claim a deduction for saving for your retirement

7 January 2019

A change to the rules around superannuation means that more Australians may be eligible to claim a tax deduction for putting money into super.

Before June 30, 2017, if more than 10% of your income was sourced from salary or wages from an employer, you were rendered ineligible to claim any tax deduction for after-tax contributions you may have made to your superannuation fund.

But this rule has been removed, effective for the 2017-18 financial year and onwards, so now anyone who puts their own money into super — called personal contributions or (in the lingo of superannuation professionals) non-concessional contributions — may be able to claim a tax deduction for it.
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Consumers Compensated by Financial Institutions Still Need to Consider Tax

16 December 2018

With the ongoing financial services Royal Commission, and likely future cases brought before various courts for compensation — or indeed the present building of class action lawsuits on the back of various revelations to come out of the Royal Commission — the ATO has felt the need to run over the rules (as they stand) regarding the taxation of compensation paid to individuals for advice from financial institutions.
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Shares and tax: A stockmarket investment primer

12 November 2018

Investing in the stockmarket is a lot more common than it was years ago, with ordinary Australians having experience with shares and the stockmarket either directly or through managed funds or via their superannuation fund.

Recent research conducted by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) found that around 60% of Australians hold share investments outside of their institutional superannuation fund, and 31% directly own listed investments. Over the past five years the proportion of 18 to 24 year olds investing in shares has doubled from 10% to 20%, and over the same time the proportion for 25 to 34 year olds has increased from 24% to 39%.

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