Our latest insights

When families come into large sums of money – typically from the sale of a business or property – the question often arises: ‘Do I gift this money now to my family or do I wait and include it in my estate?’

While much of the country is now open, businesses are still navigating the impact of COVID-19 – largely without the assistance of State and Federal Government pandemic-focused support. Therefore, insolvency is an unfortunate and potential reality for many.

It is clear that consumers are demanding more from retail brands. Today our relationships with retail companies has moved past the transactional buy and sell contract, to one that has growing demands around transparency, diversity and good citizenship.

Working with our family business clients, we have seen some businesses misunderstand the purpose of, or underutilise, the director appointed as Chair, and therefore miss the opportunities, skills and perspectives this role can bring.

Deceased estates are often a complex situation to navigate, especially when the death of the individual was unexpected, leaving behind issues which can lead to spouses, siblings, extended family, friends and business partners entering into a dispute over the assets to be distributed.

The ATO has recently issued a new class ruling expanding on what products qualify as a ‘portable electronic device’ for FBT exemption purposes. In addition to devices that were designed to operate as a small, portable complete unit without an external power supply such as laptops, mobile phones and similar devices, the new ruling extends to include portable display monitors that run in connection with phones, tablets, etc. Espresso Displays were an instrumental part of the process, having obtained the ruling for their portable screens.

With the end of the financial year less than a month away, now is an opportune time to review your business affairs as part of your year-end tax planning

A deep dive into the accounting, tax and finance implications as you transition from exploration through development and ultimately, production.

Australia entered into the Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (“ECTA”) on 2 April 2022. One surprising feature of the ECTA was the side agreement for Australia to essentially overturn, by way of domestic legislation, the result of the full Federal Court decision of Satyam Computer Services Limited v Commissioner of Taxation [2018] FCAFC 172. That case held that Australia had taxing rights over certain income (under the tax treaty between Australia and India) derived by primarily Indian offshore IT companies, even though those services were performed offshore, and even where Australia’s domestic legislation did not otherwise impose tax.

‘We have always done it that way.’ The seven most expensive words in a business, remarked Janine Allis from Boost Juice at the recent Family Business Australia conference.

When it comes to M&A transactions, businesses can often be eligible for GST refunds – but how do you determine if this is the case, and how much is recoverable? In our latest Tax in M&A series, we look at a threshold test that can be applied to transactions whereby businesses only make limited financial supplies. But there is a limit to how much GST can be claimed back when the Financial Acquisitions Threshold (‘FAT’) has been exceeded.

AusTrade announced the opening of the next round of the 2023 Export Market Development Grant (EMDG) program. Applications are proposed to open for 5 weeks, from 31 May to 5 July 2022. The EMDG program is the Federal Government’s cornerstone funding program encouraging Australian businesses to seek export opportunities for their goods, services, intellectual property and software. The program allows businesses to access grants over an 8 year period, or up to a total funding amount of $770,000. The reform model is available to businesses with a turnover of less than $20m as at 30 June 2022.