Protecting honest businesses

In its effort to facilitate a fair business environment, the ATO has offered continued support for honest businesses.

With an estimated $40 billion lost to the hidden economy, the need for strong diligence and continued governance over Australian businesses is essential. The Black Economy Taskforce that was established in May 2017 and various trends have since been better understood regarding strategies dishonest businesses and individuals are using to evade their tax responsibilities.

Trends show that problematic areas include:

• The sharing economy: the money exchanged through services such as Airbnb, Airtasker and Uber are all taxable. Ensure you understand how to be compliant before engaging with these services.
• Cash transactions: employers paying employees in cash to avoid tax and super responsibilities costs the economy an astronomical amount, as well as contractors accepting cash payments and not accurately documenting these.
• Incorrect reporting: individuals and businesses failing to report their business dealings correctly are creating huge liabilities in the economy. Small reporting dishonesties by a great portion of taxpayers creates a large balance of unaccountable money; the majority of unaccountable money in relation to tax evasion.

Transfer balance account report now available

The new transfer balance account report (TBAR) is available on the ATO’s website.

Self-managed super funds can use the TBAR report to report events that affect an individual member’s transfer balance account. The option to report is available from 1 October 2017, however, SMSFs are not required to report anything until 1 July 2018.

Events that affect a member’s transfer balance account will need to be reported to minimise the tax consequences of exceeding the transfer balance cap.

Funds with straightforward affairs are likely to have only a few events per member to report over the life of the fund. Common events that will require reporting include:

• the values of any retirement phase income streams to which an SMSF member is entitled, including reversionary income streams
• the value of any commutation of a retirement phase income stream by an SMSF member
• structured settlement payments an SMSF member receives and contributes to their fund
• certain limited recourse borrowing repayments that give rise to a transfer balance credit as a result of recently enacted legislation.

Reporting SMSF changes

Self-managed super fund trustees must notify the Australian Tax Office (ATO) if there are changes to their SMSF.

Trustees must provide written notice within 28 days if there are changes to:

• the name of the fund
• the address of the fund
• details of the contact person
• the membership of the fund
• the trustees of the fund
• the directors of the fund’s corporate trustees
• your SMSF’s bank account details and Electronic service address.

The above details are used by the ATO to determine if your fund meets the definition of an SMSF.

Providing incomplete or inaccurate information may make it impossible for your fund to receive rollovers or contributions.

If any of these details change for your SMSF, contact our office to update your details.

Keeping your SMSF compliant while overseas

Travelling overseas for an extended period of time is an exciting adventure. What isn’t so exciting is the prospect of breaking compliance laws in relation to your SMSF while enjoying your trip.

There are specific conditions that must be met to deem the self-managed super fund ATO compliant. They are as follows:

Fund recognised as an Australian fund
The SMSF will be recognised as an Australian super fund provided that the setup of and initial contributions are likely to have been made and accepted by the trustee(s) in Australia or at least one of its assets is located in Australia.

Management and control of the fund carried out in Australia
The central management and control of the fund must ordinarily be in Australia. This means the SMSF’s strategic decisions are regularly made, and high-level duties and activities are performed in Australia. Some examples include formulating the investment strategy, reviewing the performance of the fund’s investments and determining how assets are to be used for member benefits.

Generally, fund’s will meet this condition even if its central management and control is temporarily outside Australia for up to two years. If central management and control of the fund is permanently outside Australia for any period, it will not meet this requirement.

Active member test
An “active member” is a contributor to the fund or contributions to the fund have been made on their behalf.

To satisfy the “active member test” trustees should ensure the fund has no active members, or it has active members who are Australian residents and who hold at least 50 per cent of the total market value of the fund’s assets attributable super interests, or the sum of the amounts that would be payable to active members if they decided to leave the fund.

If a member of the fund becomes a non-resident but still wishes to make or receive contributions, they should do this outside of their SMSF, i.e., through a retail or industry super fund. When they return as an Australian resident, they can then rollover the contributions to their SMSF.

Imported services and GST

Under the new law introduced on 1 July 2017, Australian GST registered businesses that import services or digital products for business purposes do not have to pay GST.

These businesses will need to supply their Australian business number (ABN) and a statement that they are registered for GST to the supplier at the time of purchase to ensure they are not charged GST.

Overseas businesses registered under the simplified GST system for non-residents do not have an ABN and cannot issue a tax invoice. If a business believes that GST has been charged, they will need to contact the supplier and seek a refund if appropriate.

However, if an Australian business is not registered for GST or their purchases are not for business use, they will need to pay GST and will not be able to claim it back.

How does the super guarantee charge work?

Employers who do not pay the minimum amount of super guarantee for their employee(s) by the due date may have to pay the super guarantee charge (SGC).

The charge is made up of super guarantee shortfall amounts including any choice liability calculated on your employee’s salary or wages, interest on those amounts (currently 10 per cent) and an administration fee ($20 per employee, per quarter).

Employers must report and rectify the missing payment by lodging an SGC statement by the due date and paying the SGC to the ATO. Employers may be able to use a late payment to reduce the amount of SGC, however, they must still lodge an SGC statement and pay the balance of the SGC to the ATO.

The ATO prioritises the collection of unpaid SGC debts. If an employee reports an employer for unpaid super, the ATO will investigate on their behalf.

Employers must lodge their SGC statement and pay the charge by the due date.

If a due date falls on a weekend or public holiday, the payment can be made the next working day.

Once the statement has been lodged and the SGC is paid, the ATO will transfer the super guarantee shortfall amount and any interest to the employee’s chosen super fund.

Ride sourcing – Claiming car expenses

Those who participate in ride-sourcing (i.e., Uber, GoCatch) as a driver can access a number of tax deductions come tax time.

You may be able to claim expenses such as:
– Parking fees
– Road tolls
– Mobile phone costs
– Fees or commissions charged the facilitator
– Other expenses – to the extent that they relate to work-related travel.

Under the logbook method (the business-use percentage of car expenses) include:
– Petrol
– Depreciation of your car
– General vehicle running costs such as insurance, car rego and repairs
– Maintenance.

Expenses you cannot claim include:
– Fines, such as parking and speeding fines
– Fuel tax credits
– The cost of getting and maintaining a standard driving licence
– Costs of a capital nature, such as car purchase price
– Personal or private expenses, such as the private use of a car used for ride-sourcing activities.

If you use your car for both personal and work-related use, you will need to apportion your car expenses appropriately. If the owner of the car is a spouse or de-facto partner, you can still claim deductions for the car as it is considered a joint asset.

You may be eligible for a range of concessions, i.e., simpler depreciation – instant asset write-off if you are a small business entity in an income year. Be sure to review your eligibility each year.

New measures to crack down on super non-compliance

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will receive additional funding for a Superannuation Guarantee Taskforce to crack down on non-compliance by employers.

The Government has announced a package of reforms to close a legal loophole used by dishonest employers that short-change employees who make salary-sacrifice contributions to super.

Funding for the Taskforce coincides with new data released by the ATO reporting a significant estimated Super Guarantee gap. This gap is the difference between the theoretical amount payable by employers to be fully compliant and actual contributions received by funds.

The ATO estimates the net SG gap as 5.2 per cent or $2.85 billion of the total estimated $54.78 billion in SG payments that employers were required to pay in 2014-15.

The gap exists because some employers are not meeting their super guarantee obligations either by not paying enough or not paying at all.

Employers who deliberately are not paying their workers’ super entitlements are robbing their workers of their wages. The new package aims to take action on this so employers cannot hide from their legal obligation.

Some of the measures included in the package involve:

• A requirement for superannuation funds to report contributions received more frequently (at least monthly) to the ATO. This is aimed to better identify patterns of non-payment and allow for immediate action;
• The rollout of Single Touch Payroll to further improve visibility on reporting, simplify tax and super for employers while allowing the Tax Office to better detect patterns of non-compliance;
• Improvements to the effectiveness of the ATO’s recovery powers, including strengthening director penalty notices and the use of security bonds for high-risk employers, to ensure unpaid super is better collected by the ATO and paid to employees’ super accounts; and
• Allowing the ATO to seek court-ordered penalties in the most shocking cases of non-payment, including employers who are repeat offenders.

The crackdown serves as a strong reminder for businesses to do the right thing. The ATO deals with roughly 20,000 complaints annually regarding unpaid super from both former and current employees.

Superannuation is a legal entitlement for employees; failure to pay employee super guarantee is illegal and can result in harsh penalties.

Sharing economy and tax

The ATO is reminding those who work in the sharing economy to be aware of their tax obligations.

The sharing economy connects buyers (users) and sellers (providers) through a facilitator who usually operates an app or a website. Some popular examples include Airbnb, Stayz, Uber, Deliveroo, Airtasker and so on.

Different rules apply, depending on what type of sharing economy activities are undertaken by an individual.

Those who rent out part or all of their home are reminded to:
– declare what they earn in their tax return;
– apportion related expenses as appropriate before claiming deductions and
– understand it may affect their capital gains tax if they sell their home in the future.

Individuals who participate in ride-sourcing activities need an ABN, to register for GST from the day they start, to pay GST on the full amount of every fare and to keep records of income and expenses for both GST and income tax purposes. GST credits associated with your ride-sourcing enterprise are deductible.

Those providing other goods and services through the sharing economy need to remember to declare what they earn and apportion related expenses.

Strategies to bulk up your super before retirement

To retire comfortably, you should be doing everything you can while still in the workforce to make sure your superannuation is as fruitful as possible.

Consider the following:

Consolidate super into one account
Super account fees can eat away at your super balance, especially if you have numerous accounts. If you find yourself in this position, take the time to organise your super contributions into the one account to reduce unnecessary and excessive fees.

Outstanding super payments
Check you have been paid all the super you are entitled to, as well as interest, as this can uncover large amounts of unpaid super. Employers have a legal obligation to pay all employees who have earned more than $450 in the space of a month, and these payments are required to be paid at least quarterly. If you have not been paid what you are owed, you are also missing out on accumulated interest. It is now compulsory for employers to report the super contributions they make, but this was not always the case, meaning you may need to contact previous employers or the ATO to access unpaid super you are entitled to.

Salary sacrifice
This is an efficient way to grow your superannuation while also incurring worthwhile tax benefits. To practice salary sacrificing, you will have to come to an agreement with your employer. You can contribute money from your pre-tax salary into your superannuation account, on top of the 9.5 per cent SG contribution that your employer must make. You will only be taxed 15 per cent on this additional contribution amount, but it does mean taking home a smaller figure each paycheck.

Spousal contributions
If your spouse is a low-income earner who is receiving less than $13,800 annually, you can contribute up to $3,000 into their super each year while getting an 18 per cent tax offset. This can save you up to $540 in tax.