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What does the Budget Proposal Mean For Your Taxes?

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Coalition Government’s 2019 Budget In what Treasurer Josh Frydenberg called “the largest personal income tax cuts since the Howard government,” low and middle-income earners will be some of the biggest benefactors in the proposed budget released on 2 April of this year. At the time this article was written, low to middle income earners…

Cyber Security Requires Expanded Access to Tech Skills

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Digitalisation opens up many possibilities throughout the economy, but also opens businesses up to new threats. Those in the professional services sector must be aware of the many avenues of attack that online operations allow. The most common of these include: > Phishing – where emails or websites are used to trick…

Instant Asset Write-Off Extended, Threshold Increased up to $25,000

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Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently announced that the instant asset write-off would be extended to June 30 next year and that the threshold would be increased to $25,000. These changes took effect from January 29, according to the Australian Taxation Office. “This will enable over three million small businesses across…

ALP Propose Franking Credit Changes

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Labour has announced plans to restrict certain existing tax exceptions for investors, if they were to win the coming elections. The party argues that the existing rebates and incentives – including those on capital gains, negative gearing, and franking credits – lead to tax avoidance. All of these proposed tax…

ATO Phone Scams

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Earlier this year, we reported on the Australian Tax Office’s (ATO) warning regarding malicious phone scams. In July, over 4,000 such calls had been reported. In November, this number sky rocketed to 27,000. With estimate losses reaching $830,000 in November alone, it’s clear the threat from the swindle has not subsided. The scam…

Are Australians able to Retire Comfortably?

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Earlier this month, the Grattan Institute released a detailed report hitting back at superannuation lobbyists who claim that many Australians will not retire with enough money. The belief that “Australians don’t save enough for retirement…encouraged by the financial services industry fear factory, is mistaken”, the report states. As a matter of fact, the Grattan…

ATO Issues Public Warning: Beware of New Scams

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The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is warning the public to watch out for phone calls from fraudsters during tax time. The latest method involves a three-way phone call between the scammer, the victim and a second scammer impersonating the victim’s tax agent. “One recent example had a taxpayer unfortunately thinking the…

7-Eleven Joins List of Companies Penalised for Accounting Misconduct

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7-Eleven was fined $192,780 for forging employee and payroll records. Payroll and bookkeeping were the most common contraventions across all companies. This April, the Federal Circuit Court penalised Avinash Pratap Singh, a manager and shareholder of 7-Eleven in Brisbane of $32,130; moreover, a $160,650 penalty was imposed on S &…

How a Change in Markets Will Affect Your PI Insurance

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For many years the accounting industry has been operating in a ‘soft market’ for professional indemnity (PI) insurance. In this market, insurance premiums are quite low with broad policy wordings (that’s good news for you). Now we are beginning to see the early signs of a shift towards a ‘hard…