Tax Tips for SMEs
Personal tax returns can be quite intimidating – so if you’ve recently made the move from only filing a personal return to being responsible for a small business, you might be wondering how much you’ll learn through disaster-control!
Fortunately with the help of business tax advisers, you can make it through the financial year with minimum fuss. For eleven months and 30 days, though, the records that go into that tax return are your responsibility. Today we will look at the top tips from Sydney tax agents on meeting your obligations and maximising your return.
Keep it together
Keep all business expense and income records together in a cash book. This is usually done with bookkeeping software and spreadsheets, though the manual method is still acceptable in some circumstances. Popular applications include MYOB and Quickbooks, and many Sydney tax agents will be able to train their clients in the functions they will specifically need. Easy Tax have been guiding SME’s for decades and will assist you easily in this area.
Employee records
When it comes to tax time, the records that your business tax agent will need include payment summaries, eligible termination payments (to employees that left the company with benefits owing), and reportable fringe benefits. Your payment summaries will be automatically generated by all good bookkeeping software programs; if you need additional advice on calculating them (for example, if you keep manual records), Sydney tax agents can usually help out. easy tax can help out.
The “Five year itch”
You need to store your tax records for a minimum period of five years, while they are still subject to a possible audit by the Tax Office. In most cases, you will not have turned over every single record to your business tax agent, you will simply have given them a report detailing total expenses. Keeping the tax invoices and bank statements relating to your expenses needs to be done in house, for five years at least.
Keeping records for every pay period
There are plenty of records and payments that you can’t leave until the end of the year, but which must be paid either every pay period or every month. These obligations fall under three main categories:
- PAYG withholding (the tax that is owed per payment to yourself and your employees)
- GST recording obligations
- Superannuation
You may have gone to your Sydney tax agent for advice when you first started up your business about these issues – or you may have muddled through until now! We always recommend that you check in with your business tax accountant at least yearly about the state of your day-to-day record-keeping.
They may be able to point out deficiencies that would otherwise only be found when a Tax Office auditor was going through your records. They will also be able to advise you on state legislation regarding recording keeping for SMEs, which vary widely across Australia.
Whatever your situation, Easy Tax is passionate about helping you manage your business to its full potential so that you can achieve the lifestyle you deserve.
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Our Sydney accountants at Easy Tax Accountants and Tax Agents in Sydney provide ethical, innovative, proactive and constructive Sydney accounting services. Our experience enables us to deliver some of the best Sydney tax advice, efficient preparation of tax returns and maximise deductions through to lodging your tax return… all focused on achieving the maximum potential tax refunds. In particular, we provide LAFHA Australia specialist tax and accounting advice for expatriates, whether you are based locally or internationally.
Take advantage of our small business accounting services during which we will help you to refine your needs and consider an accounting and tax planning solution for you or your business going forward… make an online enquiry today or call us on +61 2 9419 5322 and let us help you solve your accounting or tax problems.
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