Our latest insights

With so much media coverage and laws focused on paying your people correctly, businesses today are more aware about the potential to have payroll issues.

As the FY22 year-end financial reporting date approaches, we explore some of the important changes, current environmental risks and why it pays to start planning early.

While conflict happens, how you manage it can be the difference between a business (and family) that thrives, and one that becomes destabilised.

With rising supply chain costs and disruptions on a global scale as a result of the pandemic, Australia has been a prime example of resilience by increasing reliance on domestic products to minimise shortages. Although we’ve increased the supply of Australian products, some organisations struggle to compete with global sellers. As supply chains slowly ease back into a pre-pandemic rhythm and import capabilities open back up to their full potential, to compete on a global scale more efficiently, this creates an opportunity to consider where trade policies via tariffs and quotas could be applied to even out the playing field.

The Australian Labor Party (Labor) today announced that, if elected, it will seek to introduce measures to "close tax loopholes exploited by multinational companies".

In this podcast, Kirsten Taylor-Martin and Simon Gow, Partners in the Private Business Tax and Advisory team at Grant Thornton Australia discuss setting up a family office.

Next generations are itching to take over – the question is are they ready? Future leaders should allow at least three to five years to demonstrate their credibility and develop leadership skills. There are high expectations of the next generation’s business acumen, financial and industry understanding, the ability to lead and inspire, and capability to overcome hurdles. Taking over the family business is a process that often spans across a number of years, and can be separated into succession of management (that is, responsibility and authority), and succession of ownership.

A foreign real estate buyer has been penalised $250,000 by the ATO after purchasing Australian residential properties without being authorised by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). It was found that in addition to owning two established properties that were also in breach, the investor had purchased a further four unauthorised properties.

We have now been through numerous Top 1,000 ATO Taxpayer Reviews and are yet to hear a business state that the process is exactly as they envisaged, or less onerous than anticipated.

The ATO has recently released findings from its Next 5,000 reviews to date. The program is conducted by the ATO via its Streamlined Assurance Reviews (“SAR”). This framework generally involves a review of the group’s tax returns for the two most recent years lodged, and is focused on entities within the group with significant activities or transactions.

In the March 2022 Federal Budget, the Government announced two support measures for small businesses (turnover under $50m) in the form of a 20 per cent uplift of the amount deductible for expenditure incurred on external training courses and digital technology

When considering starting a Family Office, it is important to know the potential pitfalls that may affect your wealth position and how every family member has the potential to impact this wealth – positively and negatively. And many are often an untapped resource.