Our latest insights

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.

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.

‘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.

Australian manufacturers have been through difficult times, particularly with the shutdown of the automotive industry, but remaining businesses are proving to be agile and resilient having already battled through lots of challenges. In addition, the accelerating pace of new technologies being introduced, combined with COVID-19 disruption and the Government’s substantial industry support, many manufacturing business models have been fundamentally challenged for the better.

On Tuesday 10 May 2022 the Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner handed down his final budget. The 2022-23 Northern Territory budget outlined a $1.1b deficit and net debt of $8.7b, which is an improvement in the forecasting contained within the 2021 Budget which forecasted a 2022/23 deficit of $1.2b and net debt of $10.1b.

Whilst Covid-19 accelerated the growth of online retail, we can expect something of a post-pandemic rebirth of physical stores. Humans are social creatures. We like to interact. To look and feel. To experience.

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.

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.