In general terms, the Tax Office takes the view that expenditure associated with a person’s place of residence is more likely to be of a private nature. However if you produce assessable income at home, or some of it, and you incur expenses from using that home as your “office” or “workshop”, you will generally...

Many companies, or even whole industries, offer their customers loyalty award-based incentives programs. These programs, such as the “Frequent Flyer” and “Fly Buys” schemes, are designed to reward customers for purchasing or using a company’s goods and services (or indeed, those of its affiliates). As a result of one particular court case, the Tax Office...

The Tax Office stipulates that a business must use “ordinary time earnings” to calculate the minimum compulsory superannuation guarantee contributions for employees. It says that using ordinary time earnings will ensure all eligible workers are treated the same, and will have a fair amount of super guarantee put away. But what exactly is “ordinary time...

The Tax Office’s ongoing compliance efforts have some constant focus. One of these is the often flawed characterisation of an employee as a contractor by businesses. The mischief from the Tax Office’s point of view is the avoidance of employer obligations relating to the Superannuation Guarantee (SG) and Pay As You Go (PAYG) withholding. Characterisation...

An employment termination payment (ETP) is generally a lump sum amount paid to an employee upon termination of their employment. Depending on the type of ETP, the employee’s age and years of service, the amount may be taxed in a number of different ways. An ETP may comprise of a tax-free portion, concessionally taxed portion...

If you are an employer registered for goods and services tax (GST), you may be entitled to claim GST credits for payments you make to reimburse employees (including company directors) or partners in a partnership for certain work-related expenses. If you are running a business, you will be entitled to a GST credit for an...

With the advent and steady growth of the self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) sector, superannuation professionals are steeped in discussion about financial services automation and where it will lead. Some believe automated advice will be the next huge innovation, but it’s proving to be a divisive frontier.   Taking the work of human accountants and leaving...

One of the very first questions you are asked on your individual tax return is:  “Are you an Australian resident?” It may seem an unusual or unnecessary question, but the Tax Office wants to get this one cleared up early as it makes a big difference to everything else that follows. The tax law definition...

Small business is a sector that came out a clear winner from the 2015-16 federal budget delivered by the Treasurer Joe Hockey. Despite the lead-up mutterings that the budget was going to be “dull and boring”, there were nevertheless a few surprises contained in the pages of the budget papers. Many key budget announcements that...

Many taxpayers will have noticed that “pre-filling” has become much more widespread, which is only possible due to the amount of financial information that is able to be accessed by the Tax Office. Each year the government’s revenue collection arm extends further and further into the databases of financial institutions, employers and to other sources...