Practice Update

The Government has released a consultation paper outlining proposed reforms to ‘simplify’ the loan agreements that are generally required when a shareholder (or their associate) borrows funds (or receives a payment) from a related company. Editor: Broadly, where a private…

The ATO has received increasing reports of a new take on the ‘fake tax debt’ scam, whereby scammers are now impersonating registered tax agents to lend legitimacy to their phone call. The fraudsters do this by coercing the victim into…

From 4 October 2018, the Government has banned activities involving electronic sales suppression tools (‘ESSTs’) that relate to people or businesses that have Australian tax obligations. The production, supply, possession or use of an ESST (or knowingly assisting others to…

The Taxable Payments Reporting System (‘TPRS’) has been expanded to the cleaning and courier services industries from 1 July 2018. Businesses that have an ABN and make any payments to contractors for cleaning or courier services provided on behalf of…

Single Touch Payroll (‘STP’) commenced on 1 July 2018 for approximately 73,000 employers who have 20 or more employees. There is currently legislation before Parliament to expand STP to all employers from 1 July 2019 and it is estimated that…

The Government has fast-tracked the already legislated tax cuts to small and medium businesses by bringing them forward five years. Companies with an aggregated turnover of less than $50 million will have a tax rate of 25% in the 2022…

The Government has announced a package of reforms to tackle illegal phoenix behaviour. By way of background, phoenixing occurs when the controllers of a company strip the company’s assets and transfer them to another company, to avoid paying the original…

Legislation has been passed by Parliament to implement the Private Health Insurance (‘PHI’) reforms announced by the Government in October 2017. The measures are designed to simplify PHI and make it more affordable for consumers by improving the value of…

As part of the next phase of its drought assistance policy (which includes various other measures), the Government announced that farmers will be able to immediately deduct the cost of fodder storage assets. Previously, these types of assets (such as…

Last year, 6.7 million taxpayers claimed a record $7.9 billion in deductions for ‘other work-related expenses’, which includes home office expenses. Reportedly, due to a high number of mistakes, errors and questionable claims for home office expenses, the ATO has…