Another great HB function to celebrate Melbourne Cup was held on 5 November with the entire office jumping on a City Cat and spending the afternoon at the Regatta Hotel’s Courtyard and The Walrus Club. Needless to say, plenty of fun was had by all.. great food consumed, champagne sipped and a few wallets made a little lighter with a few misplaced bets!
Author: Harris Black
Brentnalls Affiliation Conference
On Wednesday 23 October 2019, Harris Black’s Directors, Practice Manager (Kimberley Schluter) and Workflow Manager (Kath Healy) headed to the Sofitel Hotel in Darling Harbour, Sydney for another of the firm’s bi-annual Brentnalls Conferences.
As many of you will already know, the Brentnalls affiliation is a network of like-minded, independent Chartered Accounting firms across Australia with members in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hamilton VIC, Perth and Auckland NZ. Harris Black has been part of this dynamic group of professionals for over 20 years. Each of our firms have a similar passion for improving client service and striving for best practice in all areas of business. In particular we are all very focused on helping our clients achieve their goals, develop their businesses and ultimately grow their wealth.
Our Brentnalls Conferences are generally held in October and April/May of each year and run across 2-3 days. They provide us with the valuable opportunity to share our ideas, further develop our capabilities through collaboration with our colleagues from other firms and ultimately improve our ability to better support and provide exceptional service to our own clients.
The focus topics for this conference were well received and considered by all. They included the following:
Compliance issues associated with the use of Electronic Signatures – guest speaker, solicitor David Reid;
Audit protection insurance and the increasing number of ATO Audits conducted by governing bodies – guest speaker, Michael Sexton from “Accountancy Insurance”
Innovation – what stifles innovation in the workplace and ways to create an innovative culture within your firm – guest speaker James O’Loghlin
Additionally, as is the norm for our October conferences, each firm provided an update on their internal practices which in turn generates further collaboration within the group to identify and implement best practices.
The Brentnalls group enjoys a great camaraderie given many of the participating professionals have known each other for a significant period of time. Whilst the days are hectic and packed with information and discussion, we do tend to enjoy our evenings with a few relaxing drinks, great dinners and plenty of laughter.
Australian Financial Review – Top 100 Accounting Firms 2019
Harris Black is proud to be a founding member of the Brentnalls National Affiliation, which has just been ranked 28th in the Australian Financial Review Top 100 Accounting Firms of 2019.
The growth of Harris Black and all firms in the affiliation is a testament to the collaborative model and culture of the group, where the focus is on being better positioned to help our clients achieve their goals.
“The AFR 100 result is a recognition of the strong trans-Tasman brand that is Brentnalls. It continues the trend of recognition by the market that holistic and complex advisory and accounting services are not served just by the Big 4 and 2nd tier firms; a recognition that a strong trans-Tasman affiliation can provide “A” grade solutions whilst continuing to provide a strong client relationship that mid-sized firms have traditionally provided”
Geoff Fitzgerald
Brentnalls National Affiliation Chairman
Unpaid Super: Important Amnesty Update For Employers
The launch of Single Touch Payroll (STP) will dramatically improve the ATO’s ability to monitor employers’ compliance with compulsory super laws moving forward. This electronic reporting standard is now mandatory for all Australian businesses and gives the ATO fast access to income and superannuation information for all employees.
The government is getting tough on unpaid compulsory super guarantee (SG) contributions, but fortunately for businesses it has recently announced a revised “grace period” to rectify past non-compliance. All businesses should review their super compliance to consider what action they may need to take.
The timing of your disclosure is important. The proposed new amnesty will cover both previous disclosures made since 24 May 2018 (under the old amnesty scheme that the government failed to officially implement) and, importantly, disclosures made up until six months after the proposed legislation passes parliament.
Reminder – Removal Of Tax Deductions For ‘Non-Compliant’ Wages
From 1 July 2019, the following payments can only be claimed as a tax deduction if they comply with the PAYG Withholding and Reporting Obligations:
salary, wages, commissions, bonuses or allowances to an employee;
directors’ fees;
payments under a labour hire arrangement; and
payments for a supply of services (except from supplies of goods and real property) where the contractor has not provided their ABN.
To ensure your payments are still tax deductible, you must:
withhold the appropriate amount of PAYG Withholding Tax from that payment; and
report that amount to the ATO (via your Activity Statement).
It is not too late if you have failed to comply with the above.
A voluntary disclosure can be made to the ATO in the approved format provided an ATO audit has not yet commenced.
Should you have any queries about voluntary disclosures, please contact your Harris Black team to discuss further.
Family Trust Elections – Why Do One?
You may hear the term family trust and you may even have a family trust, but do you know exactly what that means?
A family trust for tax purposes is one whose trustee has made a valid family trust election. It is not sufficient to simply include the words ‘family trust’ in your trust’s name.
A trustee only makes a valid family trust election where they have satisfied the relevant tests and makes an election in writing in the approved form. Once the election has been made, it cannot be varied or revoked except in limited circumstances.
There are five main reasons to become a family trust:
The trust loss measures and bad debt deductions
A company loss tracing concession
The holding period rules for access to franking credits
Trustee beneficiary reporting rules
Small business restructure roll-over tests
There are however a number of factors that need to be considered before a family trust election is made, including:
A family trust election cannot be revoked
Selection of the “test individual” is important
Tax at 47% can apply where distributions are made outside of the family group.
It is important to remember that unless a family trust election is needed for one of the reasons set out above, it is generally not recommended that a trustee make one.
Should you have any queries about family trust elections, please contact your Harris Black team to discuss further.