Our Services

Strategic Tax Planning

Extending our ongoing tax planning focus in every aspect of our engagement, we move into Strategic Tax Planning in May/June every year. We collate part year actual figures for your business and personal tax affairs, extrapolate to estimate the full year figures and produce a Strategic Tax Plan aimed at;

Analysing business performance with industry standards to identify areas of improvements.
Reviewing business figures with ATO benchmarks to identify areas of audit risks.
Estimate tax liability for your business and each member of your family.
Work out a detailed tax plan using cutting edge strategies to reduce this tax liability.
Set targets for achieving the strategy outcomes well before 30th June.

Proactive Budgeting & Target Planning

Analysing business performance with industry standards to identify areas of improvements.
Reviewing business figures with ATO benchmarks to identify areas of audit risks.
Estimate tax liability for your business and each member of your family.
Work out a detailed tax plan using cutting edge strategies to reduce this tax liability.
Set targets for achieving the strategy outcomes well before 30th June.

Tax Compliance

Our compliance services are aimed at helping you to meet your tax lodgement and payment commitments on time while minimizing your tax legally. In undertaking our task, we use our broad knowledge, checklists and professional procedures to ensure that the best possible outcomes are achieved.

Income Tax

Depending on the type of income tax lodgment you require, whether it is an individual, company, trust and so on, we use our comprehensive checklists and procedures to maintain the quality and standard of preparing documents, when completing and lodging each return. Some checklists are given to you prior to our meeting to help you organize all of the necessary documents and reduce your stress.

The end of the year period is an important time to review your finances, be it individual or business, to budget or forecast the future and plan for it. We take this opportunity to help you in this process every step of the way. Our customized and specialized advice is appreciated by many.

GST

If you are running a business, you can’t run away from GST. The GST system might seem to be complex and confusing. We keep ourselves well-informed of all changes, enabling us to offer you accurate advice.

Almost every transaction has an associated GST issue. We are experienced in these issues and can offer expert advice on the GST implications for each of your business transactions. The GST-related services we offer include, but are not limited to:

Advice on registering for GST
Review of the GST classification already done by book keepers
Advise on one-off transactions carried on by the business
Filing and adjusting GST returns
ATO audit assistance

PAYG

PAYG Withholding – Being an employer, you are not only required to pay your employees’ wages but also deduct tax (referred to as PAYG Withholding) and pay it to the ATO. You are also required to report the wages and tax to the ATO. We assist you with setting up your system to appropriately report wages and the amount of tax deducted thereon. Recent cases and ATO scrutiny has also highlighted the need to evaluate your contractor arrangements. If your contractors fall in the definition of deemed employee, you need to ensure you comply with all employee entitlements for them as well.

PAYG Instalment – Previously known as PAYE, this is an advance income tax you pay for your expected tax liability for the year. This calculation is initiated by ATO based on your previous year’s income and can be adjusted up or down depending on how your taxable income is shaping during the year. We can help you work out your estimated tax liability and adjust this instalment accordingly.

FBT

Any non-cash benefit provided to employees could attract fringe benefit tax (FBT). Be it a small business where benefits like a motor vehicle is provided to owner-employee, or a large business where expenses like meals or entertainment are covered, they all attract FBT. Given that there are some specific exceptions under the FBT laws, it is very important to plan the benefits so as to avoid incurring any excessive FBT. As a broad indicator of the impact FBT could have on your business, if you spend $100 on a meal for an employee and claim it in business, you could be up for another $96 of FBT on top. This is also a growing area of reviews and audits for the ATO, thus it needs specialist and tailored advice.

Workers Compensation

If you pay more than $7,500 in wages, you need to get workers compensation insurance. Wages for workers compensation purposes are widely defined and can include directors fees, allowances, portions of dividends or trust distributions, superannuation etc. The rates are governed by the state. We can help you to solve the maze of workers compensation and identify your correct minimal liability.

ATO Audit Response

As part of our value added services, we are there to help you every step of the way if you receive any ATO queries, reviews and audit. We have a proud history of taking up cases in this area with ATO where we believe you have been given a raw deal. In some of our recent cases we have successfully argued in favour of our clients in areas of superannuation, personal taxes, business taxes and GST. In simple terms, we will fight for you all the way through. This is a service that we also provide to other local accounting firms.

We have a strong track record in requesting remissions of interest and penalties, if ever you falter.

The most painful part of an ATO audit process is the cost associated. We try to take that pain away by offering our clients Audit Insurance Cover through AIB Accountancy Insurance Policy (a subsidiary of Suncorp Group).

Bookkeeping/Accounting

Modern business requires up-to-date and accurate financial information for a better informed decision making process. We can relieve you and your staff of the enormous burden of all your bookkeeping and accounting needs, including preparation of your periodic management accounts and budgets.

We discuss your requirements with you and provide information relevant to your particular situation, as well as constructive advice, as required.

Super Guarantee

As an employer you are expected to correctly calculate and pay the super guarantee for your employees’ wages. Wages are defined as Ordinary Time Earnings (OTE) and include a host of allowances and benefits you may be paying your employees. This is an area of close scrutiny by ATO and a failure in this area could attract penalties of up to 200%. Recent cases and ATO scrutiny has also highlighted the need to evaluate your contractor arrangements. If your contractors fall in the definition of deemed employees, then you need to ensure that you comply with all employee entitlements for them as well.

We can help you understand and fulfil your obligations in this complex and emerging area of tax compliance.

Contractor Compliance

This is a new and complex area of tax compliance, and is one of the most aggressively pursued areas by the ATO. For some time now businesses and individuals have thought that if they engage someone with an ABN, they do not need to comply with any employee entitlements (PAYG, Super Guarantee, Fair work, Workers Comp, Payroll Tax, Immigration Law etc). In recent times the ATO has won some strong cases indicating that if the real nature of engagement with an individual is an employer – employee relationship, then the business could be up for all of the above entitlements, and more. We can help you understand and comply with this emerging risk area for your business.

Payroll Services

Administering your payroll can be time-consuming and divert you from your core business activities. Added to this, payroll and employment legislation are growing increasingly complex. We can relieve you of this burden by providing a comprehensive, confidential payroll service that includes:

Customised payslips
Administration of PAYG, statutory sick pay, and annual leave
ATO filing and lodgments
Summaries and analyses of staff costs
Administration of incentive schemes, bonuses, and termination payments

Whether it’s a large organization or mum and dad operation, we can help you understand your obligations and assist you with timely compliance.

Tax Strategies & Advisory

Our advisory services includes the areas of specialised tax and business advice. Starting from the most appropriate business structures, our tax advisory services go on to offer the best tax strategies to save tax for all levels of tax payers. These services are aimed at not only our clients but also other small to medium sized accounting firms who find our advice to be more cost and tax effective for their clients.

Our approach is to look at your business life cycle, identify what aspects of business, tax or finance impact you most and produce ‘out of the box’ solutions towards achieving your goals.

We are a specialized advisory firm on Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax and Superannuation providing services to not only our clients but also a pool of local accounting firms who regularly seek our help for their client matters.

Business Structures & Strategies

One of the most important and yet most under rated questions for a start up business is what business structure to adopt. From a simple sole trader to a more complicated structure involving companies or trusts or even partnerships of trusts, this could make a huge difference in how you save tax, generate wealth and protect assets.

Whether you are starting a new business or getting serious about some serious investments, the business structure you use could immensely impact your;

Ongoing Tax Liability
Capital Gains Tax Liability
Asset Protection
Succession Planning
Access to tax free funds, etc.

Trusts

Trusts can be used very effectively to help you generate wealth and protect assets while saving substantial taxes. These are misunderstood by many accountants and keenly scrutinized by the taxman. If used correctly, trusts can be a secure way to run your business and hold investments.

As specialist advisors on trusts, we have the latest knowhow and insights on how to make trusts work for you.

Income Streaming

Tax planning is a legitimate way to ensure that your affairs are arranged in the most efficient manner and are aimed at reducing your tax bill. Income streaming refers to transferring income to individuals or entities to take advantage of their tax threshold or tax rate and is one of the most effective ways of saving tax. Income streaming is possible for different structures and different kinds of income earned. We can review your business affairs and assist with the possibilities of streaming income where possible.

Asset Protection

It’s not just business but individuals that need to ensure that their assets built with years of toil are protected appropriately. Where not planned correctly, a liability of the business could extend to liquidating personal assets. Assets protection can be achieved by managing affairs through a proper business structure. It’s never too late to organize your affairs in order to protect your assets.

Investment Properties

Investment properties are often thought of as the best income generating option once you have the financial arrangements at your disposal. Such investment properties could also offer a way for you to save some tax where the property is negatively geared, but this does come with a compromise of paying the holding cost (interest). We can assist you in a variety of areas relating to residential and commercial property including but not limited to:

Cash flow assessment to check affordability
Calculate tax advantage to see if investment is tax negative and cash positive
Reviews of lease agreements
Advice on funding
Advice on ownership structure
Periodic reviews to ensure returns are maximised

High-Net-Worth Tax Planning

As a high-net-worth individual or family, you face a distinct set of considerations for tax and wealth planning. On top of this, the ATO has a sharper eye on you. This therefore requires a closer, more concentrated effort toward achieving your key objectives of saving tax, generating wealth and protecting assets. As specialist advisers in tax and superannuation, we walk with our high-net-worth individuals step by step in managing their affairs.

We understand that as a high-net-worth individual, you often have little time left, as you are committed to achieving your career and family goals. You may have received professional advice from a number of service providers including a financial planner, superannuation consultant, banker, insurance advisor and stockbroker. The process often becomes oriented toward meeting compliance obligations, with less attention devoted to developing a “plan”.

Our aim is to fill this void by identifying your needs, coordinating with the appropriate external suppliers and implementing a value generation plan.

We service specific financial needs of High-Net-Worth Individuals including:

The identification, development and implementation of strategies to meet personal financial goals
Cash flow planning to meet current needs
Annual preparation of income tax returns for the individual and his/her associated entities
Maintenance of appropriate annual tax return supporting documentation
Strategic income tax planning to minimise or defer taxation liabilities
Creation of a retirement planning strategy, ensuring that sufficient after tax income is created to maintain your chosen lifestyle in retirement
Asset Succession & Estate Planning, ensuring Wills are updated, the minimization of capital gains tax payable upon death, and meeting the objectives of efficient distribution of your Estate
Provision of competent investment advice to meet your goals
The evaluation of the adequacy of the life, asset and income insurance cover.

Salary Packaging and Salary Sacrifice planning

Salary Packaging is about paying for your personal expenses from your pre-tax salary. While most of these would result in a hefty FBT tax for your employer, there are some very specific exclusions and concessions. Planning your Salary Packaging is thus about exploring these concessions to gain an advantage in tax. These could be packaging your car, children’s education, trips back home, Living Away from Home allowance, etc.

Salary sacrificing is a term used for contributing your pre-tax salary into your super. This could result in saving substantial tax and building your retirement nest.

Negative Gearing / Super Gearing planning

Negative Gearing is about claiming your out of pocket investment holding costs in tax. If you spend $1 on your investment, be it for mortgage interest, rates, depreciation, maintenance etc., you can expect to get 20c to 40c back in tax. It is important to understand that even after a tax refund, you are generally out of pocket. Thus unless your investment grows in value at a rate higher than what you are losing each year, you could end up on the losing side. Not all negative gearing products are therefore good for you. It is a matter of picking up something which generates wealth for you in the long run.

Super Gearing is an extension of the above concept with an advantage of moving your negatively geared investment into your self managed superfund. This gives you additional advantages like lower capital gains tax.

Living Away from Home Allowance

A part of FBT law, LAFHA provides an opportunity to an employer to compensate their employee through tax free benefits if the employee is required to live away from their home. Over the years these benefits have been restricted to ensure only genuine cases get the advantage. As your specialist advisors we can assist you, as an employer or employee in identifying the tax free benefits available for you.

India – Australia International Tax Affairs

Our International Tax Advisory covers Australian Taxation implications on overseas income earned in any jurisdiction, be it India, Sri-Lanka, Singapore, New Zealand, UK, USA or Europe.

Particularly with India, we also provide Indian Taxation Advice and services to Australian Indian residents. These include advice on Indian versus Australian Taxation on Indian Income, Double Tax Avoidance, Repatriation and so on.

Small Business CGT Concessions and other Complex CGT Planning

Rewarding small business entrepreneurs, Small Business CGT Concessions provide opportunity for reducing a capital gains tax on sale of business assets to virtually nil. These concessions could literally reduce capital gains tax on sale of your business to NIL. Though as you would expect, this is not as simple as it sounds. There are stringent conditions imposed by the tax laws for small businesses to gain access to the small business CGT concessions. We can help you identify whether the relevant conditions are satisfied to take advantage of the small business CGT concessions. More importantly we can also assist in structuring your business affairs such that maximum benefit of the concessions can be gained.

Similarly there are various CGT Concessions in the tax law, which if used correctly can save you ‘000s in tax.

Death, Divorce & Tax

There are two certainties in life, Death and Taxes. When they come together though they create a huge array of uncertainties and possibly avoidable taxes. At such times of bereavement leave your tax worries to us. Our specialised team will take care of all tax implications including implications of testamentary trusts and superannuation and perhaps come out with some pleasant tax savings as well.

Similarly in the most trying moments of a separation, whether mutual or disputed, our team can help you assess tax outcomes of various options. Often solicitors ignore this area resulting in either or both parties paying unnecessary taxes. We can help you understand tax implications of various settlement options and guide you towards the best possible outcome.

SMSF Compliance & Strategies

SMSFs are the fastest growing area of the superannuation industry and accounting profession alike. We are specialist SMSF advisors providing not only day to day SMSF accounting, tax and audit but also top of the line strategies and solutions towards tax savings, pensions and, property purchase in superfunds, along with overseas investments and the like. Some of our services include the following;

Formation and management of SMSF

It sounds simple, but there are quite a few factors to consider whether an SMSF is the right superannuation structure for you. We can bring to your attention various factors to consider and help you to make an informed decision. Once decided, we then hold your hand through the maze of super laws and regulations to help you manage your fund and achieve its objectives. Our services include day to day accounting, tax and audit of SMSFs to ensure your fund enjoys concessional tax status.

Specialised Tax Planning for your SMSF

One of the biggest advantages of Super is its ability to minimise tax. From just 15% contribution tax on your pre-tax contributions to possibly nil tax on your fund’s income and capital gains, there are a host of strategies possible. We work with you to identify the best and most suitable strategies available to you to maximize the tax benefit from your SMSF.
These include;

Withdrawal and recontribution strategies
Segregated pensions for 100% tax free income
Transition to Retirement and Full Pension benefits
Purchase of properties in the fund
Super gearing
Overseas investment through the fund

SMSF Overseas Investments (Special focus on Indian Investments)

Contrary to general belief, an SMSF is not restrained from investing overseas, provided it meets the general super rules and regulations. Many SMSFs take advantage of the better earning opportunities available overseas, whether it be high growth economies like India and China, or special opportunities in the US and Europe. As specialist advisers we can help you understand all of the rules and regulations you need to comply with in order to ensure that your fund enjoys compliance status for concessional tax.

Rated as one of the first accounting firms to identify and establish a legally approved process of investing SMSF funds in India, we can help you to understand and comply with not only the Australian regulations but also Indian regulations in legally investing in India and repatriating income and capital back to Australia.

Business Services

Your business needs a lot more than just tax planning. The most sought after service that our business clients seek is in helping them understand their businesses; identify areas needing improvement and work toward achieving better results. This starts by setting an annual budget with achievable targets, ensuring up-to-date management accounts, better information for decision making, and cash flow forecasts and the like.

Benchmarking

Have you ever wondered how your business performs in relation to your competitors? What is their average bottom line? Are you spending enough on advertising? Are you paying too much rent? Are your staff costs too high? Surviving in today’s business climate requires you to spend more time working on your business than in it. We can provide you with accurate, timely and informative benchmarking reports that enable you to:

See how your business compares to your competitors
Understand more about how the rest of your industry works
Analyse the key performance indicators in your industry

Equipped with this information, we’ll work with you to develop action strategies that improve your bottom line.

Budgeting

A good budget is a necessity in a good business plan. It is one of the best business tools you can have, enabling you to set financial targets and measure your performance.

In addition to their goal-setting value, budgets will often improve your chances of acquiring funding. Financiers often require budgets as a prerequisite for funding approval.

The techniques that we utilise to form financial projections enable you to consider future scenarios and provide you with goals to strive for in your business. There are many types of budgets. We can help you to design the right budget for your requirements.

Let us show you how a budget can provide the facts and figures that you need to prepare for the future of your business!

Business Start-Up

If you have a good idea for a new business venture but don’t have expertise in the legal or financial aspects of creating a new business, then we can help you:

decide on the most suitable structure for your business – sole trader, partnership, or limited company
prepare a business plan, cash flow projections, budgets, and trading forecasts
assess your finance requirements, advise on the best sources of finance, and draw up the necessary proposals
establish a good working relationship with your bank
register for an Australian Business Number with the ATO
complete registration procedures with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission
deal with company secretarial issues
set up a recording system for your internal use and for complying with statutory requirements

Let us help you to turn your business idea into a reality!

Selling a Business

Selling a business can be a difficult, disheartening time and the tasks involved can seem particularly arduous. We can take the unwanted burden from you.

The services we provide for preparing to sell a business include:

Obtaining comparative results
Establishing a realistic sale price
Taking the business to the market
Negotiating with potential purchasers
Drafting a contract

Our friendly, professional team will help you obtain a maximum return for your business.

Franchising

There are two critical relationships a business owner has to manage – with his customers and with his employees. When it comes to Franchising, there is a third one – your franchisor. With an in-depth understanding of this area, we understand the challenges and pressures that our franchisee clients go through. We have worked with franchisee clients for Gloria Jeans, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Snap Printing, Wendys, Ben & Jerry’s, Simply Delicious, Pack and Send and others.

Come along and see how we can help you to manage your business interests and profits in the growing franchising industry.

We are a founder member of ‘Franchisee Accountants Network’. Fondly known as FAN Club, this organization helps us grow specialized skills in developing services for our franchisee clients.

Business & Personal Finance

We understand that one of the most important aspects when borrowing funds, whether it is for business, equipment, personal home or investment, is the effectiveness of the borrowing tax structure. Hence, our team provides specialised advice to ensure that your borrowings remain tax effective not only in your current circumstances but also in the future, taking into consideration potential changes in future demands.

Equally important for our clients is knowing that they have someone on their side who knows the banking industry and will negotiate to get them the best product at the best rates and costs. We are highly respected by our clients in ensuring that we put their interests first. We have a trusted group of contacts both directly in the banking industry as well as through respected finance brokers to ensure that you get the best deal possible.

Some of the financial products that we arrange include:

Business Loans
Motor Vehicle / Equipment Finance
Home Mortgage
Investment Property Finance

Estate & Succession Planning

This area is one of the least serviced by the accounting profession. While we accountants are busy helping you make money and save tax, most of us rarely think about your succession planning.

As a dynamic practice which aims to address all of the business and wealth generation concerns and needs of our clients, our practice has developed a high level understanding of this area and has established contacts with some of the best minds in the industry.

As unpleasant as the task is, estate planning is one of the necessities of life. Knowing your hard-earned assets will be dealt with in the manner you choose provides peace of mind. For business owners, a plan for succession of ownership is essential. We can guide you through the process of providing for business continuity.

As your accountants, we are better placed than most other professionals to understand your situation and needs. By partnering you in this journey we can help you to establish a sound strategy for estate planning of your personal wealth and succession planning for your business.

The areas in estate administration that we can assist with include:

Meeting to discuss objectives for your estate
Confirming assets – valuations, inventories, and appraisals
Court approval for a grant of administration
Documentation involved in estate planning
Protecting the assets
Paying taxes and debts
Estate distribution