Your questions answered During lock down I have had to work from home. I’ve set up a full home office with paintings, plants, a desk, computer equipment, a water tower and a sculpture. I presume I can claim everything I have purchased for this office and claim part of my mortgage and running costs? [...]
The ATO on COVID-19 fraud warpath We always knew that a Government scheme swiftly distributing cash during a crisis was going to come with equally swift compliance and review measures, particularly when eligibility was self-assessed. Two major Australian Taxation Office (ATO) initiatives are searching out fraud and schemes designed to take advantage of the Government’s [...]
JobKeeper and termination payments (breakout box) An employment termination payments (ETP) is a lump sum payment made to an employee when their job is terminated. ETP’s are generally made up of unused sick leave or unused rostered days off, payment in lieu of leave, genuine redundancy payments, etc. For some employers, JobKeeper will not [...]
Funding for the arts: what’s available and how can you get it Will the Prime Minister’s targeted $250 million package of funding to support cultural and creative projects and initiatives save the industry? The arts funding is aimed at kick starting the sector with funding preferencing commercial initiatives that generate jobs and are expected [...]
Increased flexibility for Parental Leave Pay for self-employed From 1 July 2020, parents accessing the Government’s parental leave pay (PPL) scheme will have greater flexibility and options. Targeting the self-employed and small business owners, the changes introduce a new flexible paid parental leave pay period of 30 days. Previously, new parents could apply [...]
Minimum wage increases by 1.75% An increase to the minimum wage of 1.75% will start rolling out for the first full pay period from 1 July 2020. The increase applies to minimum rates in awards in 3 stages: Group 1 Awards - from 1 July 2020 Frontline Heath Care & Social Assistance Workers Teachers [...]
What’s changing on 1 July? Company tax rate reduces to 26% for base rate entities $150k instant asset write-off scheduled to reduce back to $1,000 for small business entities and will no longer be available for entities with aggregated annual turnover of $10m or more, although accelerated depreciation rules apply to certain entities until 30 [...]
“…while it is all very well to talk of 'turning points', one can surely only recognise such moments in retrospect.” Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day The JobKeeper subsidy has progressed beyond the rush for eligibility and entered its second phase: compliance. Late last month, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) released guidance highlighting [...]
News headlines recently stated that casual workers have won the right to paid leave following a decision in the Federal Court. As usual, the devil is in the detail. At present, there is no global change granting Australian casual workers paid leave. The case however, highlights the long running problem of determining over time, [...]
1 July company tax rate reduction Despite the current economic environment, the company tax rate will reduce to 26% for small and medium businesses from 1 July 2020. The 1 July change is part of a larger progressive plan to reduce the company tax rate to 25% from 1 July 2021 and applies to [...]