Tax accountant in Brighton and Melbourne.

Individuals, companies, trusts, partnerships and self-managed superannuation funds. The business and the personal picture are kept joined up, so family tax matters and the business are handled together rather than in isolation.

Yes. Alongside income tax returns we prepare and lodge BAS and GST, handle PAYG, and deal with ATO correspondence, with the bookkeeping kept current underneath so the numbers are right before a return is prepared.

Before the decision, not after it. Taxation is the core of the practice, so we aim to advise on the tax consequences of a move, including capital gains, while there is still time to plan for it rather than simply reporting it once it is done.

25% if it is a base rate entity for that income year, and 30% if it is not. Two tests have to be met, not one: aggregated turnover below the threshold for the year, which has been $50 million for the 2018-19 income year and later years, and no more than 80% of assessable income being base rate entity passive income. Passive income for this purpose includes rent, interest, royalties, most dividends and net capital gains, including gains on assets used in the business. The test is applied year by year, so a prior year's turnover does not decide the current year's rate. One consequence catches people out: the rate used to frank a dividend is worked out on the previous year's figures, so the rate a company pays tax at and the rate it franks at are not always the same.

A resolution making one or more beneficiaries presently entitled to the trust income for that year, made by 30 June, or by an earlier date if the deed requires one. If no beneficiary, including a default beneficiary, was presently entitled at 30 June, the trustee is assessed on the trust's net income instead, and that may be at the top rate of tax. The resolution does not have to state a dollar figure, so the accounts do not have to be finished by 30 June: a clear method, such as a stated percentage of whatever the income turns out to be, is effective. The ATO also accepts a record written up after 30 June as evidence of a resolution genuinely made by that date. What matters is that the resolution is consistent with the deed and that the entitlement is vested and cannot be taken away.

When GST turnover reaches $75,000, or $150,000 for a non-profit organisation, and then within 21 days. Two turnover figures matter: current turnover, being the present month plus the previous 11, and projected turnover, being the present month plus the next 11. Reaching the threshold on either one triggers the obligation, with one useful exception: if current turnover is at or above the threshold but projected turnover will be below it, registration is not required. Leaving it too late is expensive, because GST can be payable on sales made from the date registration was required, whether or not GST was charged on them at the time.

Two gates, both of which have to be passed before any of the concessions are reached. The first is a size test: the net value of the CGT assets held by you, your affiliates and entities connected with you must not exceed $6 million just before the CGT event, a limit that is not indexed, and the count reaches well beyond the business itself, including a main residence to the extent it has been used to produce income. Alternatively the small business entity turnover route can be used. The second is the active asset test: the asset must have been active for at least half the period it was owned, or 7.5 years if it was owned for more than 15, and those periods do not have to be continuous. The common trap is rent. An asset whose main use is deriving rent is generally not an active asset even though it sits inside a business, which is why the structure a property is held in is worth settling long before a sale is contemplated.

Five years for most records, counted from when the record was prepared or obtained or the transaction completed, whichever is later. Some run from a different point: fringe benefits tax records from the date the FBT return is lodged, employee super contribution records from the date of the contribution, and super fund choice records from the date the employee was engaged or made a choice. Depreciating assets and CGT assets are the long ones. Those records are kept for as long as the asset is held and then a further five years after it is sold or otherwise disposed of, which is why the cost base records for a property or a business sold this year can need to reach back decades.

Yes. The practice keeps the books as well as preparing the returns, from the Brighton office at Suite 1, 307 Bay Street: general ledger, debtors and creditors, payroll, and the BAS and GST lodgments that sit on top of them. Day-to-day bookkeeping runs on Xero, which we set up, migrate and support as part of Xero's partner program, so a separate bookkeeper alongside the accountant is not something you have to arrange. Keeping both under one roof is the point of it: the bookkeeping is kept current underneath, so the numbers are already right when a return or a BAS is prepared. Fixed asset registers, depreciation schedules, and budgets and management reports with variances against actual performance come off the same records. The full detail is on the Xero, bookkeeping and payroll page.