Month: December 2014
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Letter to Senator Cormann, Acting Assistant Treasurer on Earnouts
I had one of those “what are they doing” moments and sent this letter to the Government. I feel better now that I have written it but it won’t do anything… Come on Treasury, prove me wrong… Senator, Many thanks for all your efforts, and those of your staff and your department, in managing the […]
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Rental property mistakes…
The Commissioner has let us know some of the common errors they find in returns with rental properties. And it is quite a list: – Stamp duty on the transfer of property. Unless you live in the ACT this is a component of the cost base. – Other expenses that should be in cost base […]
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Why wont people prepare their own return?
In the 2012 year there were 12.7 individual tax returns lodged with the ATO. 9.2 million of these were lodged by tax agents. Given that just over a quarter of all of these individual returns were nil tax payable, this means that tax agents lodged about 6.9 million “tax payable” tax returns. An uncomfortable aside […]
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What are we waiting for in tax and super – Announced but unenacted changes…
Next year we will be looking at a Government White paper on reforming the tax system (what did I do in 2008 on the Henry Review?!?!?!). And this time we will review the tax system with failing public finances. But before we start, once again, coming up with the simple, equitable, efficient and adequate tax […]
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Making super for employers “a little bit” easier
Nothing is for free – except the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House. So have you thought about whether you or your clients should be using this system? The Small Business Superannuation Clearing House is a free online super payment service run by the ATO for small businesses with 19 or fewer employees. It allows businesses […]
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End of Limited Recourse Borrowing Arrangements? And a whole lot more!
I do hope so… In the final report of the Financial System Inquiry undertaken by David Murray, the main recommendation that applies to Self Managed Super is to remove the exception to borrowing for limited recourse borrowing arrangements. I have seen this done wrong so many times and the ATO states that a large percentage of private rulings requests […]
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The End of Excess Contributions Tax Mark 2
In the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No 7) Bill 2014 we finally get the final rules that will allow the refund of excess non-concessional contributions. We have discussed this change when it was released as draft legislation. But the final legislation is different from the draft legislation in the following ways: There is no longer a […]
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Will the full federal Court ever learn…
Just under a year ago I wrote the following regarding the full Federal Court decision in MBI Properties… So the supply was defined form a literal rather than a practical perspective and led to a ridiculous outcome. But remember the Federal Court also found that there was no supply by Qantas when people did not […]
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