Getting Personal with Kate Slater, Multitasking, Single Touch Payroll and More!

Money is personal and trust and relationships are important to us, so throughout this year watch our getting to know us spaces! It’s just like story sharing at childhood sleepovers, without the pjs and pizza...

Most of you would know that I lodge tax returns and that I bought into Camtech & Slater in 2016 but how did I get there and what else do I enjoy?

My “calling” to becoming an accountant started when I was learning debits & credits in high school, the good old days! I was working a part time job at KFC and was forever planning holidays by budgeting mine and my friend’s money on napkins, during breaks of course.  

Teenage dream? Not for all, but for me it became pretty clear I enjoyed money, people and management. Goal setting & achievements excite me as well as the journey in-between. After high school I continued working while completing my business degree, comprising of mainly accounting & business management units.

Fast forward to today, 6 years of study, 9 years at Camtech & Slater and the ripe old age of 31 I can title myself Director / CPA / BBus Accountant. 

This title means using mine and my team’s knowledge and experience to help individuals & business owners put pen to paper to move into the lifestyle they deserve.

I am in this field because I am zealous about growth, for my business and yours as well as our personal movements. I like to match the tax rambling to tax bills, to a minimum. Leaving the legislation to us, keeping it simple for you.

While I love a bit of humour and don’t always take myself seriously, I do take what I do very seriously.

Workplace, home, or social life, I enjoy working in teams.

Me and you.

Working together, step by step from start ups to selling, solving problems and achieving goals and having as much as fun as we can in the process.

I love travelling the world meeting people, sharing stories and experiences. Staying fit, friends and playing guitar are my outlets.I have a supportive husband, Blake, two French bulldogs and loving family who adopted me from Korea.

- Kate Slater

Multitasking – It actually takes more time than you think

We are all guilty of multitasking. Especially small business owners who are constantly working on all different aspects of their business.

Wouldn’t it be quicker and easier if you could just take a phone call and write out an email at the same time? Think about it. You’re completing two jobs in half the time! But have you ever been on the other end of one of those calls? It’s often clear that the speaker’s head is somewhere else. Doing multiple jobs at once can really affect the quality of your work.

Also, did you know that for the most part, multitasking actually takes longer than doing jobs one at a time! This is because switching between jobs takes time, even if it’s only a few seconds. You have to look back at what you’ve done and give yourself a quick refresher about the task. This all adds up after a long day of multitasking!

Our recommendation? Take some time out of each day to carefully plan the tasks you want to achieve. Do one thing at a time and work on a job until it is completed rather than jumping between activities. Alternatively, give the Camtech & Slater office a call! We would love to take on the pesky book work such as payroll and BAS that you just don’t have time for! That way, you can focus on the important things, like actually running your business!

Business owners: What is a Taxable Payments Annual Report?

The TPAR lets the tax office know what payments are being made to subcontractors, consultants, and independent contractors for providing services. These reports need to be lodged every year to the ATO by the 28th of August.

These reports help the ATO with their data matching, so they know what businesses are paying each other.

At the moment, TPAR are only required to be lodged by businesses in the building and construction industry, cleaning services, and courier services. However, from 1 July 2019 this will extend to road freight services, information technology services, and security, investigation or surveillance services.

Do you fall under any of these categories? If so, you just need to keep a record of the subcontractor’s ABN, address, and phone number, as well as the gross and GST amounts paid to them.

What if you are a business in one of these categories and you didn’t use any subbies for the financial year? Will you need to lodge a TPAR? The answer is… kind of. You will need to submit a ‘Not required to lodge’ form through the ATO website. These are actually very simple to submit! Give us a call if you’d like some help with lodging a nil TPAR.

If you DO use subcontractors, consultants, or an independent contractor in the 2019 financial year and you’re thinking ‘how on Earth do I lodge one of these reports’ don’t fret. Just bring the information into our Moe office and let us take care of the work for you. It’s what we are here for!

Business Owners: Single Touch Payroll Legislation Passed

You may have heard about the Australian Taxation Office’s changes to the way we manage and process your payroll. The new change means you’ll need to digitally report the PAYG and super amounts of your employees with every pay run, instead of paper submissions monthly or quarterly. To become compliant with Single Touch Payroll you’ll need to use a cloud solution that connects directly with the Australian Tax Office so you can report your payroll seamlessly.

Information you need to report include gross wages, tax withheld and superannuation. You will still be able to pay withholding tax with your BAS and super quarterly, but from 1 July 2019 you will be required to report every single time an employee is paid.

The good news is that Xero, Quickbooks, and most Reckon products are updating their systems to make STP reporting with the ATO a breeze. If you are unsure whether your accounting software will offer STP reporting, just jump onto their website and there should be an indicator!

Single Touch Payroll may come as a shock to employers who are still processing payroll through spreadsheets and the ATO tax tables. Never fear! There is still time to adopt a low-cost payroll software that is compliant with STP. You might be surprised by how efficient actual payroll software is compared to self-calculations!

We would suggest looking into Single Touch Payroll sooner rather than later, so on 1 July you are ready to go!

Give us a call on 5126 5555 for any queries you have regarding Single Touch Payroll

First Home Buyers Tax Savings

The 2017 budget saw the implementation of a new savings system that first home buyers can take advantage of to help them enter the housing market. You may have heard of the ‘First Home Super Saver Scheme’ which is the fancy name for putting money into your super to help save for your first home.

How it works:

For most people, the First Home Super Saver Scheme could boost the savings they can put towards a deposit by at least 30 per cent compared with saving through a standard deposit account. This is due to the concessional tax treatment and the higher rate of earnings often realised within superannuation.

You can make voluntary super contributions into your super fund either through a salary sacrifice arrangement (pre-tax) with your employer. Or for those of you who are self-employed or whose employers do not offer salary sacrifice can claim a tax deduction on personal contributions (after-tax), meaning savings effectively come out of pre-tax income.

This can be done up to $15,000 in one financial year and up to $30,000 in total contributions. As this scheme is for first home buyers this system can only be used once per individual. Please note that the maximum amount of super concessional contributions per year is capped at $25,000 for all individuals and includes the Super Guarantee of 9.5% that your employer already puts into your super for you so you will need to make sure that any additional contributions you make under this scheme do not put you over the $25,000 total in your super fund per year.

Who is eligible:

You can start making super contributions from any age, but you can not request a release of amounts under the FHSS scheme until you are 18 years old.

Also, you must have:

• never owned property in Australia – this includes an investment property, vacant land, commercial property, a lease of land in Australia, or a company title interest in land in Australia (unless the Commissioner of Taxation determines that you have suffered a financial hardship)

• not previously requested the Commissioner to issue a FHSS release authority in relation to the scheme.

Eligibility is assessed on an individual basis. This means that couples, siblings or friends can each access their own eligible FHSS contributions to purchase the same property. If any of you have previously owned a home, it will not stop anyone else who is eligible from applying.

An example of how this all works:

Michelle earns $60,000 a year and wants to buy her first home. Using salary sacrifice, she annually directs $10,000 of pre-tax income into her superannuation account, increasing her balance by $8,500 after the contributions tax has been paid by her fund. After three years, she is able to withdraw $27,380 of contributions and deemed earnings on those contributions. Her withdrawal is taxed at her marginal rate (including Medicare levy) less a 30 per cent offset. After paying $1,620 of withdrawal tax she has $25,760 that she can use for her deposit.

Michelle has saved around $6,240 more for a deposit than if she had saved in a standard deposit account. Michelle's partner Nick has the same income and also salary sacrifices $10,000 annually to superannuation over the same period. Together they have $51,520 that they can put towards a deposit, $12,480 more than if they had saved in a standard deposit account.

Other important information:

There are a few important things you need to know if you plan to use the FHSS scheme:

• You can only apply for release once.

• Don't sign your contract to purchase or construct your home until after you have had released the first FHSS amount to you or you may be liable to pay FHSS tax.

• After you have requested the release, it may take up to 25 business days for you to receive your money.

You have 12 months from the date the first FHSS amount is released to you, to do one of the following

• sign a contract to purchase or construct your home - you must notify us within 28 days of signing the contract

• re-contribute the assessable FHSS amount (less tax withheld) into your super fund and notify us within 12 months of the first FHSS amount being released to you.

• If you don't notify us or you choose to keep the FHSS money, you will be subject to the FHSS tax. This is a flat tax equal to 20% of your assessable FHSS released amounts and not the total amount released.

We know this can all seem quite daunting and a lot to take in at once so if you want to sit down with one of our friendly team to discuss your options please do not hesitate to give us a call or shoot us an email.