Has anything changed? Women and girls make up just over half (50.7%) of the Australian population. While women comprise roughly 47% of all employees in Australia, they take home on average $251.20 less than men each week (full-time adult ordinary earnings). The national gender “pay gap” is 15.3% and it has remained stuck between 15%…
What you need to do 1 July 2019 is not that far away. If your business does not already use STP compliant software, you may need to upgrade your systems or implement new ones. STP requires PAYG withholding and superannuation contribution details to be reported to the ATO as payments are made to employees or…
ATO scams The refund scam follows a more sinister four phase scam stating there is a warrant out for your arrest for unpaid taxes in prior years. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has warned about the emergence of a scam where “…scammers are using an ATO number to send fraudulent SMS messages to taxpayers asking…
Another year, another scam! While data-driven crime is more sophisticated and difficult to address than ever, human error and judgement remains one of the major problems. The latest data breach report from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) is surprising for the simplicity of the problems – 37% of data breaches resulted from…
Statement from Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan about transition to STP for small employers Parliament has now passed legislation to extend Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting to include all small employers (those with fewer than 20 employees) from 1 July 2019. STP is payday reporting by employers to the ATO as it happens, this reporting having started on…
What the stats say While 4 in 5 of us rate our health as ‘very good’, 50% of Australians have a chronic condition that is likely to cause their death, 63% of adults are overweight or obese, and around 45% of us will experience a mental illness in our lifetime. Leading causes of death differ…
Life does not always go to plan While we logically know that, most of us don’t plan for the worst – it’s all a bit morbid and time-consuming. The downside of not planning is the potential for hard-earned assets to be squandered, family fall-outs, and money handed to the Government that could have been distributed…
Do you earn income overseas? A recent case highlights why you might pay more tax than you thought on foreign income. If you are an Australian resident and earn income from overseas, such as income from investments, sale of assets such as property, distributions from foreign trusts, etc., you will generally need to declare that…
Quick update Tampon tax (GST on sanitary products) scrapped Voluntary crackdown begins on credit card providers to protect consumers who cannot pay off their credit card debt or who cannot afford an increased limit Higher Education Loan Program: New lifetime caps prevent students repeating courses or continually enrolling in new courses. New loan limits: Increase…
Expenses you can claim If you’re an employee who regularly works from home, you may be able to claim a deduction for expenses relating to that work. These are generally home office running expenses, and phone and internet expenses. In limited circumstances you may also be able to claim occupancy expenses. One such circumstance is…