With car fringe benefits one of the most common benefits provided by employers to employees, a new ATO fact sheet shines more light on the FBT exemption for electric vehicles. To recap, in the October 2022 Federal Budget, the government announced that it would exempt from FBT the private use, or availability for use, of...

If you carry on your business affairs through a trust structure, there is now more clarity around the law on distributions following much uncertainty throughout the year. Neither the taxpayer, Mr. Springer, nor the Commissioner has appealed against the Full Federal Court decision handed down in January 2023 (Commissioner of Taxation v Guardian AIT Pty...

Access our Wallace Partners Client Information Newsletter April 2023 below: Wallace Partners CIN April 2023    

Already rolling into March…2023 is flying by! From a superannuation standpoint, following are just some of the changes you can expect this year: Super guarantee increase Employers face an increase to their SG liability this year. The rate of SG will increase from 10.5% to 11% from 1 July 2023, before gradually hitting 12% on...

In February, the Commissioner released Taxpayer Alert TA 2023/1: Interposition of a holding company to access company profits tax-free. In the Alert, the Commissioner says the ATO is currently reviewing arrangements where an individual accesses the profits of a private company in a tax-free form (that is, without an additional tax liability for the individual)...

The ATO is encouraging accountants to educate clients around varying PAYG instalments – this can potentially assist cashflow. To recap, PAYG (pay-as-you-go) instalments allow business taxpayers to make regular prepayments towards the tax on their business and investment income. This is in contrast to salary and wage earners who already make prepayments by having tax...

Last year 9,700 individuals applied for compassionate release of super for dental treatment expenses, and 82% were approved. Out of those approved, 9% were for a dependent child’s dental treatment, which could include braces. What is the pathway for access? While normally superannuation must be preserved for retirement, there are limited  exceptions. One of these...

It’s been a particularly difficult 12 months for investors. On the superannuation front, we now have two major reports assessing how super accounts fared in the  2022 calendar year. Super­Ratings issued its average balanced return recently and found it was minus 4.8%. Late last year, ChantWest undertook a similar exercise – reporting a figure of...

On 20 February 2023, Treasury released a consultation paper on legislating the purpose of superannuation. This is an idea that has been around since 2016 when the former Coalition government contemplated doing the same thing. The government says that legislating an objective of superannuation will provide stability and confidence to policy makers, regulators, industry, and...

With the end of the FBT year approaching, are your car logbooks in order? The operating cost method is used by many employers to calculate their car FBT liability. This method is particularly effective where the business use of the vehicle is high. Keeping a logbook is essential to use the operating cost method. Employees...