Category: Uncategorized
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Travel and accommodation costs – The Commissioner’s opinions
The Commissioner has released 3 documents covering the income tax and FBT issues that arise from travel and accommodation costs. These three documents are: TR 2021/D1 Income tax and fringe benefits tax: employees: accommodation and food and drink expenses, travel allowances, and living-away-from-home allowances TR 2021/1 Income tax: when are deductions allowed for employees’ transport…
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The worst attempt ever at getting a tax debt forgiven due to serious hardship
A surgeon who did not pay taxes (either GST or income taxes) for 6 years found that he owed $1.2 million when the Commissioner caught up with him. He argued at the AAT that he should be released from his tax debt as he would suffer serious hardship if he was required to satisfy the…
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Friday Ramblings – Single Touch Payroll again – this time its STP & “closely held (related) payees”
Let’s start with that fact that if you have any arm’s length employees in addition to your related employees, they must be reported on or before each payday under the normal STP rules. And let’s confirm that up to 30 June 2021 employers with 19 or fewer employees are exempt from reporting closely held payees…
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I hate Single Touch Payroll for not for profit organisations…
Here is the letter I wrote today to the Treasurer explaining why… Dear Minister, On 6 February the Commissioner of Taxation announced that, starting 1 July 2021, not-for-profit clubs or associations (for example, school parent associations or local sporting clubs) will need to report under single touch payroll per pay event rather than quarterly. Many of…
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Sunday Ramblings – Company Tax Rates are Messy
What is the Company Tax Rate? This once was an easy question. Only a few years ago the answer was easy… 30%. But recently there have been numerous changes to the company tax rate. In addition to the 30% tax rate we now have a lower rate, which is… Year BRE tax rate (%)2017-18 27.52018-19 27.52019-20 27.52020-21 26.02021-22 onwards 25.0 Note…
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Taxing a specific person
Sorry I keep writing about US taxes but they are going quite crazy with tax changes… and the craziest I have seen is the proposed Washington State Wealth Tax. It only applies if you have more than $1 billion in wealth and the tax each year is 1% of your wealth. But according to the…
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Monday Ramblings – No more “$1.6 million” transfer balance cap… now it is $1.7 million
Back on 1 July 2017 we all became experts on the $1.6 million transfer balance cap. The only amount that we could transfer into a tax free retirement phase was $1.6 million. But now the Commissioner has just told us that the “superannuation general transfer balance cap” will increase from $1.6m to $1.7m on 1…
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Crazy Taxes #187
San Francisco voters overwhelmingly a new tax such that any company whose top executive earns 100 times more than their median worker will pay an extra 0.1% surcharge on its annual business tax payment. If a CEO makes 200 times more than the median employee, the surcharge increases to 0.2%; 300 times gets a 0.3%…
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Monday Ramblings – Work related expense substantiation rules
I do like making life hard for people who ask me basic tax questions. When they ask me if they can claim a tax deduction for a work related expense, I like to say, “based on what I can see, you can’t claim the deduction.” I say that as to be technically correct, if they…
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Monday Ramblings – The Commissioner is encouraging drinking…
Each year the Commissioner releases a tax determination that encourages drinking. This year it is TD 2021/1 titled “value of goods taken from stock for private use for the 2020-21 income year”. Back in 2004, the Commissioner released a Practice Statement on valuing goods taken from trading stock for private use by sole traders or…
