When it comes to creating and selecting an Australian company business structure, Inspire Accountants can help.
How does a sole trader business trader work?
A sole trader business structure can be simple to set up, but comes with considerable risk of consequences.
At Inspire Accountants, we strongly recommend business owners avoid operating as a sole trader business structure. Even a business not generating sufficient income to require a great deal of tax planning can still expose the owner’s personal assets to significant risk. If you’re looking to change out of a Sole Trader business structure but are not sure which is the right structure for your business, book a complimentary call with a Senior Accountant.
What is a sole trader business structure?
Establishing a business as a sole trader is the simplest form of business structure. It is relatively easy and inexpensive to start and maintain.
Many sole traders choose to trade under their own name but this is not a requirement. A sole trader can register a business name with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and trade using this name instead.
A sole trader is essentially just an individual in business for themselves – they retain complete control of the business operation. There is no division between business assets or personal assets, which includes any assets jointly owned with another person (such as your house or car).
Your liability is unlimited which means that personal assets can be used to pay business debts. The individual is also responsible for remitting the tax on any business profits made at their marginal income tax rates.
After your first year of business profits the Australian Taxation Office will enter you into the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) instalments system. The PAYG system requires regular payments of preliminary tax based on expected profits for the following year. Any excess tax paid as a result of this will be refunded on lodgement of your income tax return.
Advantages and disadvantages of a sole trader business structure
Advantages of Trading as a Sole Trader
- Easy and inexpensive to establish and maintain.
- The individual retains complete control of their assets and business decisions.
- Fewer reporting requirements.
- Any losses incurred as a result of business activities may be offset against other income earned (such as investment income or wages), subject to satisfying certain conditions.
- You are not considered an employee of your own business and are free of any obligation to pay payroll tax, superannuation contributions or workers’ compensation on the income you draw from the business.
- Relatively easy to change your legal structure if the business grows, or if you wish to wind things up.
Disadvantages of Trading as a Sole Trader
- Unlimited liability means all your personal assets are at risk if the business operation gets in trouble.
- Little opportunity for tax planning – you can’t split business profits or losses made with family members and you are personally liable to pay tax on all the income derived.
- Business debts and losses cannot be shared.
- Requirements to pay preliminary tax on business income that may not have been earned.
- Limited access to additional capital for business growth.
Reasons Inspire Accountants don’t recommend a Sole Trader business structure
- Tax can be as high as 47%; where possible, we never want clients to pay such a high percentage of income tax.
- No distribution to any other entities, like a spouse who may pay tax at a lower rate to you.
- There is no protection of personal assets. This means that businesses sued could lose family homes, assets, and any savings in the bank.
If your business is set up as a sole trader, you are personally liable for consequences that may not be of your own creation. A disgruntled employee, a careless oversight or even just plain old bad luck could put your personal assets directly on the punitive firing line.
Brisbane Accountants to help restructure sole trader business structures into a Company
Business owners looking to shift their business operations from a sole trader structure into a private company can experience a number of benefits. However, there are also a number of key differences and potential issues that must be understood and carefully managed.
We strongly recommend anyone interested in setting up a company seek professional advice before doing so.
Contact us online to get started.
FAQs
Family means the world to us so we only work with business owners who believe that family is their most important business.
What’s the point of great financial success if it comes at the cost of precious moments with those who we love most?
We work with clients who want to better understand the numbers that grow their business and as a result we have clients who are –
- Dentists, Doctors, Psychologists, Physiotherapists and Psychiatrists
- Property Developers, Project Managers and Builders
- Personal Trainers, Gym Owners and
- Marketing Agencies, Educators & Online Retailers
- Lawyers, CFO’s, Directors and CEO’s
But most importantly our clients see themselves primarily as proud –
- Mums & Dads
- Husbands & Wives
- Boyfriends, Girlfriends & Life Partners
- Sons & Daughters
- Nans & Pops
- Cousins, Aunties & Uncles
In fact we don’t call our clients ‘clients’, they are affectionately known as our Inspire Family.
You might like to know that our clients are located all over Australia with a strong presence around Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne.
We help entrepreneurs and business owners:
- Understand the Numbers that Drive their Business
- Structure Effectively for Business Growth
- Carry out Strategic Tax Planning
- Implement Cloud Business Solutions
- Keep Tax and Accounting Lodgement Obligations Squared Away
- Set up and Run Self Managed Super Funds
We’re best known for 2 game-changing small business services –
“It’s all sorted” – a proactive small business tax and accounting service that pays for itself in tax savings. Our average tax savings for 2017 was $27,000 per client which is a 3.5 x return on their investment in our service.
“Get Cashed Up” – an 18 month business development service for business owners to double their profit and double their days off. Based on the 7 step method to pull more money, time and happiness from your business from the book “Cashed Up: 7 Steps To Pull More Money, Time and Happiness From Your Business”.
Yes, we more than cover your standard accountant’s’ role, and our clients say we’re set apart by two main things:
- Our ability to provide peace of mind through explaining the why and not just the what; and
- That we’ve “bought in” to their business, shoulder to shoulder, with intention to grow together.
We have a unique approach to providing insight into the numbers for entrepreneurs and business owners.
We want you, the business owner, to really understand the numbers behind what is going on in your business.
We work with you either on a monthly or quarterly basis, not just providing the numbers to you, but helping you to be able to use them in a meaningful way in the day to day management of your business.
We do not charge by the hour (so we aren’t rewarded for being inefficient), but rather we charge a fixed price that you know up front for the value that we provide.
It’s a different conversation and the focus for both of us is where the value is (rather than ‘let’s be quick and get this over with’ under the archaic hourly rate model).
When you come to us, we will agree on a price for any work to be undertaken at the start, then agree to a monthly ongoing amount moving forward. If there’s anything that pops up along the way, we will always agree on a price before we begin.
Oh, and we do not charge for every little phone call and email – this is just part of a working relationship!
In fact 9 times out of 10 your investment in our Tax & Accounting service pays for itself in tax saved. Sometimes 5 – 10 x times over!
That’s taking money that otherwise would have gone to the tax man and putting it towards building a family first business. Woohoo!
p.s. the 1 out of 10 exception to this rule represent the startups who aren’t earning enough money yet to make a significant tax saving!
We’ve heard some pretty bad horror stories of old school accountants taking days, weeks and sometimes even months to get back to your questions.
Our response time to phone calls and emails is key number that we focus on – and we measure it in hours, live on our website.
We successfully keep this number less than 24 hours on average for our clients.
The dream that we are working towards is getting this response time down to zero. How? We’ve anticipated your needs so well, and provided so much proactive advice that you’d never have to email or call.
We’ll get there one day!
‘Turnaround time’ is another key number that the team measures closely.
We aim to have any urgent projects and work turned around within 10 business days, so that we’re able to achieve the outcome without ridiculous delays.
Like a workflow tango, turnaround time on your tax work is a two way street – we need you to work with us too when it comes to getting us the info we need on time.
Cloud accounting
The adoption of cloud accounting software is saving businesses thousands of dollars, and hours of bookwork every week.
We work with multiple cloud accounting providers and dozens of their add-ons but we believe Xero are the absolute best solution for small business.
As a result almost all our clients are use (and love!) XERO so our team know it like the back of our hand (Xero even certified Inspire CA as their Gold Partners)
Ultimately the smart use of technology is all about saving you time.
We go into a bit more detail on cloud accounting over here.
We’re big fans of throwing around ideas on a whiteboard in the boardroom. But what about for the in between time?
We use technology such as Zoom to enhance web meetings and to describe concepts and run scenarios from our computers. We can share our screens and run you through diagrams using LucidChart.
We’ve also adopted online signing software, DocuSign, which is a dream to get documents signed and lodged.
To be able to provide real insights to your business, we need to be in contact with you many times over a year.
Ideally, we would catch up in some form at least every month, but if that is too regular for your stage in business, we can also catch up on a quarterly basis. (Any less than every quarter and we can’t provide as much value to you.
We’re a team of 20 who punch well above our weight in terms of adding value. Amongst our team are chartered accountants, business owners & serial entrepreneurs, ex-bankers, bookkeepers, CFO’s & educators.
We also engage a global team of experts when we need some extra hands on deck.
Why don’t you come on over and I’ll introduce you to the team…
Inspire Accountants was founded by Ben Walker at the age of 23 with nothing but a borrowed printer, a laptop and a simple idea: what if, instead of just doing tax and reporting on history, accountants could give game changing advice that could help people write a better future for their business and their family?
Four years on, Inspire Accountants has been showcased as a global example of what an Accounting firm should be, thanks to Ben’s disruptive approach to throwing out timesheets & charging by the hour, his challenge of the traditional ‘old school’ model of the accounting industry and belief that Accountants change lives.
Ben is a winner of the coveted Anthill Online 30under30 award for 2014, was named a finalist in the Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards and has been featured in many publications including the Courier Mail, Small Business Big Marketing Podcast with Tim Reid, Brisbane Business News & the Dent Podcast.
Today, while he continues to lead Inspire Accountants as CEO & Founder, Ben’s goal is to inspire others create a business that gives them the freedom to put family first and to make a positive difference in the world.
Budget $500 / month for our proactive tax and accounting service called “It’s all sorted”. We aim for this service to pay for itself in tax savings and in 2017 Financial Year our average tax savings per client was $27,000. That’s a 4.5x Return on Investment.
So my question to you is, is your accountant taking money or making money?
We are proud of our team of 20; 12 Accountants, 4 Admin team, 3 Marketing team, and 1 Executive Assistant. Although we are small (compared to the faceless monoliths the founders used to work in before starting Inspire) we truly believe in the words of Margaret Mead who said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” In fact in 2016 we were the ONLY accounting business to be named Top 100 Companies in Australia in the coveted annual anthill online Cool Company Awards.
Yes absolutely. We have access to a team of qualified accountants offshore who help us churn through all the low level data entry work. Unfortunately this outsourcing model is no cheaper to us than having more local accountants but it does enable us to be free of all the lower value transactional tasks, leaving us free to do higher level tax and profit strategy with our clients.
When it comes to creating and selecting an Australian company business structure, Inspire Accountants can help.
The difference between a Family Trust and a Unit Trust Business Structure
Fixed (or sometimes called “Unit”) Unit Trust Business Structures are recommended when more than one family or group is involved in the business operation.
The interest in the trust is divided into units, similar to shares in a company. The Trustee distributes income to the beneficiaries in accordance with their respective holdings in the trust. This is the key point of difference between Fixed and Family Trusts: the units remove the Trustee’s discretion concerning the distribution of income.
Advantages of a Fixed (Unit) Unit Trust Business Structure
- Fixed Unit Trusts provide protection where more than one family or group is involved in the business.
- Asset protection (where a corporate trustee is used).
- Access to Small Business CGT concessions.
- Access to a 50% 12-month CGT discount.
- Easy to raise capital by issuing additional units.
- Can pay salaries and wages as well as superannuation.
- Less regulatory requirements than trading as a company.
Disadvantages of a Fixed (Unit) Trust Business Structure
- The sale of units can be a CGT event and attract stamp duty.
- Not as flexible as a Discretionary Family Trust.
- Trustees can be personally liable for some debts of the trust (if an individual trustee is used).
Brisbane accountants to help set up a unit trust business structure
Business owners looking to shift their business operations into a trust structure can experience a number of benefits. We strongly recommend anyone interested in setting up a trust to seek professional advice before doing so. Given the additional requirements of using a trust, we work closely with all clients using this structure to ensure all their obligations are satisfied and used in the most efficient manner possible.
Contact us online to see how a unit trust business structure can help benefit your business.
FAQs
Family means the world to us so we only work with business owners who believe that family is their most important business.
What’s the point of great financial success if it comes at the cost of precious moments with those who we love most?
We work with clients who want to better understand the numbers that grow their business and as a result we have clients who are –
- Dentists, Doctors, Psychologists, Physiotherapists and Psychiatrists
- Property Developers, Project Managers and Builders
- Personal Trainers, Gym Owners and
- Marketing Agencies, Educators & Online Retailers
- Lawyers, CFO’s, Directors and CEO’s
But most importantly our clients see themselves primarily as proud –
- Mums & Dads
- Husbands & Wives
- Boyfriends, Girlfriends & Life Partners
- Sons & Daughters
- Nans & Pops
- Cousins, Aunties & Uncles
In fact we don’t call our clients ‘clients’, they are affectionately known as our Inspire Family.
You might like to know that our clients are located all over Australia with a strong presence around Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne.
We help entrepreneurs and business owners:
- Understand the Numbers that Drive their Business
- Structure Effectively for Business Growth
- Carry out Strategic Tax Planning
- Implement Cloud Business Solutions
- Keep Tax and Accounting Lodgement Obligations Squared Away
- Set up and Run Self Managed Super Funds
We’re best known for 2 game-changing small business services –
“It’s all sorted” – a proactive small business tax and accounting service that pays for itself in tax savings. Our average tax savings for 2017 was $27,000 per client which is a 3.5 x return on their investment in our service.
“Get Cashed Up” – an 18 month business development service for business owners to double their profit and double their days off. Based on the 7 step method to pull more money, time and happiness from your business from the book “Cashed Up: 7 Steps To Pull More Money, Time and Happiness From Your Business”.
Yes, we more than cover your standard accountant’s’ role, and our clients say we’re set apart by two main things:
- Our ability to provide peace of mind through explaining the why and not just the what; and
- That we’ve “bought in” to their business, shoulder to shoulder, with intention to grow together.
We have a unique approach to providing insight into the numbers for entrepreneurs and business owners.
We want you, the business owner, to really understand the numbers behind what is going on in your business.
We work with you either on a monthly or quarterly basis, not just providing the numbers to you, but helping you to be able to use them in a meaningful way in the day to day management of your business.
We do not charge by the hour (so we aren’t rewarded for being inefficient), but rather we charge a fixed price that you know up front for the value that we provide.
It’s a different conversation and the focus for both of us is where the value is (rather than ‘let’s be quick and get this over with’ under the archaic hourly rate model).
When you come to us, we will agree on a price for any work to be undertaken at the start, then agree to a monthly ongoing amount moving forward. If there’s anything that pops up along the way, we will always agree on a price before we begin.
Oh, and we do not charge for every little phone call and email – this is just part of a working relationship!
In fact 9 times out of 10 your investment in our Tax & Accounting service pays for itself in tax saved. Sometimes 5 – 10 x times over!
That’s taking money that otherwise would have gone to the tax man and putting it towards building a family first business. Woohoo!
p.s. the 1 out of 10 exception to this rule represent the startups who aren’t earning enough money yet to make a significant tax saving!
We’ve heard some pretty bad horror stories of old school accountants taking days, weeks and sometimes even months to get back to your questions.
Our response time to phone calls and emails is key number that we focus on – and we measure it in hours, live on our website.
We successfully keep this number less than 24 hours on average for our clients.
The dream that we are working towards is getting this response time down to zero. How? We’ve anticipated your needs so well, and provided so much proactive advice that you’d never have to email or call.
We’ll get there one day!
‘Turnaround time’ is another key number that the team measures closely.
We aim to have any urgent projects and work turned around within 10 business days, so that we’re able to achieve the outcome without ridiculous delays.
Like a workflow tango, turnaround time on your tax work is a two way street – we need you to work with us too when it comes to getting us the info we need on time.
Cloud accounting
The adoption of cloud accounting software is saving businesses thousands of dollars, and hours of bookwork every week.
We work with multiple cloud accounting providers and dozens of their add-ons but we believe Xero are the absolute best solution for small business.
As a result almost all our clients are use (and love!) XERO so our team know it like the back of our hand (Xero even certified Inspire CA as their Gold Partners)
Ultimately the smart use of technology is all about saving you time.
We go into a bit more detail on cloud accounting over here.
We’re big fans of throwing around ideas on a whiteboard in the boardroom. But what about for the in between time?
We use technology such as Zoom to enhance web meetings and to describe concepts and run scenarios from our computers. We can share our screens and run you through diagrams using LucidChart.
We’ve also adopted online signing software, DocuSign, which is a dream to get documents signed and lodged.
To be able to provide real insights to your business, we need to be in contact with you many times over a year.
Ideally, we would catch up in some form at least every month, but if that is too regular for your stage in business, we can also catch up on a quarterly basis. (Any less than every quarter and we can’t provide as much value to you.
We’re a team of 20 who punch well above our weight in terms of adding value. Amongst our team are chartered accountants, business owners & serial entrepreneurs, ex-bankers, bookkeepers, CFO’s & educators.
We also engage a global team of experts when we need some extra hands on deck.
Why don’t you come on over and I’ll introduce you to the team…
Inspire Accountants was founded by Ben Walker at the age of 23 with nothing but a borrowed printer, a laptop and a simple idea: what if, instead of just doing tax and reporting on history, accountants could give game changing advice that could help people write a better future for their business and their family?
Four years on, Inspire Accountants has been showcased as a global example of what an Accounting firm should be, thanks to Ben’s disruptive approach to throwing out timesheets & charging by the hour, his challenge of the traditional ‘old school’ model of the accounting industry and belief that Accountants change lives.
Ben is a winner of the coveted Anthill Online 30under30 award for 2014, was named a finalist in the Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards and has been featured in many publications including the Courier Mail, Small Business Big Marketing Podcast with Tim Reid, Brisbane Business News & the Dent Podcast.
Today, while he continues to lead Inspire Accountants as CEO & Founder, Ben’s goal is to inspire others create a business that gives them the freedom to put family first and to make a positive difference in the world.
Budget $500 / month for our proactive tax and accounting service called “It’s all sorted”. We aim for this service to pay for itself in tax savings and in 2017 Financial Year our average tax savings per client was $27,000. That’s a 4.5x Return on Investment.
So my question to you is, is your accountant taking money or making money?
We are proud of our team of 20; 12 Accountants, 4 Admin team, 3 Marketing team, and 1 Executive Assistant. Although we are small (compared to the faceless monoliths the founders used to work in before starting Inspire) we truly believe in the words of Margaret Mead who said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” In fact in 2016 we were the ONLY accounting business to be named Top 100 Companies in Australia in the coveted annual anthill online Cool Company Awards.
Yes absolutely. We have access to a team of qualified accountants offshore who help us churn through all the low level data entry work. Unfortunately this outsourcing model is no cheaper to us than having more local accountants but it does enable us to be free of all the lower value transactional tasks, leaving us free to do higher level tax and profit strategy with our clients.
When it comes to creating and selecting an Australian company business structure, Inspire Accountants can help.
What is a discretionary family trust?
A Family Trust structure, commonly set up and sometimes referred to as a discretionary family trust, is a popular business structure in Australia. The main advantages of a discretionary family trust structure are the way in which the profits are distributed and the tax planning advantages, while still providing for asset protection if set up correctly.
If you’re looking to restructure your business into a family trust structure, book a complimentary call with one of our friendly Senior Accountants online.
Should I trade in a Family Trust Structure?
A trust is a structure wherein a Trustee (either an individual or company) carries on the operations of the Trust on behalf of the beneficiaries. The actions of the Trustee are governed by the Trust Deed, which details the rights and obligations of all parties. Trusts are a common structure choice for family businesses as it enables the various family members to become beneficiaries of the Trust that is operating the business. While the trust is not a separate legal entity, it is a separate entity for tax purposes. The trustee must apply for a Tax File Number (TFN) for the trust and lodge an annual income tax return.
If a company trustee is used, the trust offers all the same asset protection benefits as using a company structure, along with the additional benefits of using a trust. A trust that has individuals acting as trustees exposes the trustees (the individual, or individuals) to the same levels of business risk as a sole trader.
What structure to operate from depends on what you want to do in your business and how you plan to grow. While operating from a trust has a lot of advantages, there are a lot of nuances that you will have to make consider before setting one up for your business.
What is a Family Trust Structure?
A Family Trust is the most flexible form of business structure for a family trust. No single beneficiary has a fixed interest in the trust’s property or the trust’s income. The trustee has complete discretion in the distribution of funds to each beneficiary. This makes the Family Trust (with a corporate trustee) a strong and flexible option for a family business. The family members are protected from business risk and the trustee has the discretion to distribute the income in the most effective way possible.
Advantages of a Family Trust Structure
- Flexibility with income and capital distribution.
- Broader Tax planning opportunities.
- Access to Small Business CGT concessions.
- 50% 12-month CGT discount.
- Asset protection (if a corporate trustee is used).
- Can pay salaries and wages as well as superannuation.
- Less regulatory requirements than trading as a company.
Disadvantages of a Family Trust Structure
- Distributions must be in accordance with the Trust Deed.
- Risk of resettlement if changes are made to trust members or trust property without giving consideration to the rules outlined in the Trust Deed.
- Losses are quarantined in the trust
- More of an investment to establish and maintain when compared to sole traders or partnerships.
- Trustees can be personally liable for some debts of the trust (if individual trustees are used).
Brisbane accountants to set up a family trust structure
Business owners looking to shift their business operations into a trust structure can experience a number of benefits. We strongly recommend anyone interested in setting up a trust seek professional advice before doing so. Given the additional requirements of using a trust, we work closely with all clients using this structure to ensure all their obligations are satisfied and used in the most efficient manner possible.
Contact us online to see how a family trust can help benefit your business.
FAQs
Family means the world to us so we only work with business owners who believe that family is their most important business.
What’s the point of great financial success if it comes at the cost of precious moments with those who we love most?
We work with clients who want to better understand the numbers that grow their business and as a result we have clients who are –
- Dentists, Doctors, Psychologists, Physiotherapists and Psychiatrists
- Property Developers, Project Managers and Builders
- Personal Trainers, Gym Owners and
- Marketing Agencies, Educators & Online Retailers
- Lawyers, CFO’s, Directors and CEO’s
But most importantly our clients see themselves primarily as proud –
- Mums & Dads
- Husbands & Wives
- Boyfriends, Girlfriends & Life Partners
- Sons & Daughters
- Nans & Pops
- Cousins, Aunties & Uncles
In fact we don’t call our clients ‘clients’, they are affectionately known as our Inspire Family.
You might like to know that our clients are located all over Australia with a strong presence around Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne.
We help entrepreneurs and business owners:
- Understand the Numbers that Drive their Business
- Structure Effectively for Business Growth
- Carry out Strategic Tax Planning
- Implement Cloud Business Solutions
- Keep Tax and Accounting Lodgement Obligations Squared Away
- Set up and Run Self Managed Super Funds
We’re best known for 2 game-changing small business services –
“It’s all sorted” – a proactive small business tax and accounting service that pays for itself in tax savings. Our average tax savings for 2017 was $27,000 per client which is a 3.5 x return on their investment in our service.
“Get Cashed Up” – an 18 month business development service for business owners to double their profit and double their days off. Based on the 7 step method to pull more money, time and happiness from your business from the book “Cashed Up: 7 Steps To Pull More Money, Time and Happiness From Your Business”.
Yes, we more than cover your standard accountant’s’ role, and our clients say we’re set apart by two main things:
- Our ability to provide peace of mind through explaining the why and not just the what; and
- That we’ve “bought in” to their business, shoulder to shoulder, with intention to grow together.
We have a unique approach to providing insight into the numbers for entrepreneurs and business owners.
We want you, the business owner, to really understand the numbers behind what is going on in your business.
We work with you either on a monthly or quarterly basis, not just providing the numbers to you, but helping you to be able to use them in a meaningful way in the day to day management of your business.
We do not charge by the hour (so we aren’t rewarded for being inefficient), but rather we charge a fixed price that you know up front for the value that we provide.
It’s a different conversation and the focus for both of us is where the value is (rather than ‘let’s be quick and get this over with’ under the archaic hourly rate model).
When you come to us, we will agree on a price for any work to be undertaken at the start, then agree to a monthly ongoing amount moving forward. If there’s anything that pops up along the way, we will always agree on a price before we begin.
Oh, and we do not charge for every little phone call and email – this is just part of a working relationship!
In fact 9 times out of 10 your investment in our Tax & Accounting service pays for itself in tax saved. Sometimes 5 – 10 x times over!
That’s taking money that otherwise would have gone to the tax man and putting it towards building a family first business. Woohoo!
p.s. the 1 out of 10 exception to this rule represent the startups who aren’t earning enough money yet to make a significant tax saving!
We’ve heard some pretty bad horror stories of old school accountants taking days, weeks and sometimes even months to get back to your questions.
Our response time to phone calls and emails is key number that we focus on – and we measure it in hours, live on our website.
We successfully keep this number less than 24 hours on average for our clients.
The dream that we are working towards is getting this response time down to zero. How? We’ve anticipated your needs so well, and provided so much proactive advice that you’d never have to email or call.
We’ll get there one day!
‘Turnaround time’ is another key number that the team measures closely.
We aim to have any urgent projects and work turned around within 10 business days, so that we’re able to achieve the outcome without ridiculous delays.
Like a workflow tango, turnaround time on your tax work is a two way street – we need you to work with us too when it comes to getting us the info we need on time.
Cloud accounting
The adoption of cloud accounting software is saving businesses thousands of dollars, and hours of bookwork every week.
We work with multiple cloud accounting providers and dozens of their add-ons but we believe Xero are the absolute best solution for small business.
As a result almost all our clients are use (and love!) XERO so our team know it like the back of our hand (Xero even certified Inspire CA as their Gold Partners)
Ultimately the smart use of technology is all about saving you time.
We go into a bit more detail on cloud accounting over here.
We’re big fans of throwing around ideas on a whiteboard in the boardroom. But what about for the in between time?
We use technology such as Zoom to enhance web meetings and to describe concepts and run scenarios from our computers. We can share our screens and run you through diagrams using LucidChart.
We’ve also adopted online signing software, DocuSign, which is a dream to get documents signed and lodged.
To be able to provide real insights to your business, we need to be in contact with you many times over a year.
Ideally, we would catch up in some form at least every month, but if that is too regular for your stage in business, we can also catch up on a quarterly basis. (Any less than every quarter and we can’t provide as much value to you.
We’re a team of 20 who punch well above our weight in terms of adding value. Amongst our team are chartered accountants, business owners & serial entrepreneurs, ex-bankers, bookkeepers, CFO’s & educators.
We also engage a global team of experts when we need some extra hands on deck.
Why don’t you come on over and I’ll introduce you to the team…
Inspire Accountants was founded by Ben Walker at the age of 23 with nothing but a borrowed printer, a laptop and a simple idea: what if, instead of just doing tax and reporting on history, accountants could give game changing advice that could help people write a better future for their business and their family?
Four years on, Inspire Accountants has been showcased as a global example of what an Accounting firm should be, thanks to Ben’s disruptive approach to throwing out timesheets & charging by the hour, his challenge of the traditional ‘old school’ model of the accounting industry and belief that Accountants change lives.
Ben is a winner of the coveted Anthill Online 30under30 award for 2014, was named a finalist in the Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards and has been featured in many publications including the Courier Mail, Small Business Big Marketing Podcast with Tim Reid, Brisbane Business News & the Dent Podcast.
Today, while he continues to lead Inspire Accountants as CEO & Founder, Ben’s goal is to inspire others create a business that gives them the freedom to put family first and to make a positive difference in the world.
Budget $500 / month for our proactive tax and accounting service called “It’s all sorted”. We aim for this service to pay for itself in tax savings and in 2017 Financial Year our average tax savings per client was $27,000. That’s a 4.5x Return on Investment.
So my question to you is, is your accountant taking money or making money?
We are proud of our team of 20; 12 Accountants, 4 Admin team, 3 Marketing team, and 1 Executive Assistant. Although we are small (compared to the faceless monoliths the founders used to work in before starting Inspire) we truly believe in the words of Margaret Mead who said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” In fact in 2016 we were the ONLY accounting business to be named Top 100 Companies in Australia in the coveted annual anthill online Cool Company Awards.
Yes absolutely. We have access to a team of qualified accountants offshore who help us churn through all the low level data entry work. Unfortunately this outsourcing model is no cheaper to us than having more local accountants but it does enable us to be free of all the lower value transactional tasks, leaving us free to do higher level tax and profit strategy with our clients.
When it comes to creating and selecting an Australian company business structure, Inspire Accountants can help.
How does a company business structure work?
A company PTY LTD signifies that something is a company which stands for ‘Proprietary Limited. If you want to speak to an accountant about a company business structure, you can book a ZERO-cost, initial chat.
What is a company business structure?
A company is a separate legal entity from the directors or the owners of the business. The directors control the day-to-day running of the company and the shareholders own the company.
Shareholders are sometimes called members. The members or shareholders actually have the ultimate control over the company because they can fire and hire the directors as well.
Advantages of a company business structure
A company might be great for a business that is wanting a simplified, straightforward structure that has a flat rate of tax. You can also own a fixed percentage so that it allows you to sell down part, or all of the business by selling shares. You can also exit the business down the track by selling the goodwill in the company which is just selling the company’s assets that it holds.
If you’d like to explore a company business structure, then you can book an initial chat with one of our accounting team and explore if a structure and strategy session may be appropriate to work out exactly what structure is appropriate for you and your family from an asset protection and tax minimisation perspective. Book a free call at https://inspire.accountants/chat
FAQs
Family means the world to us so we only work with business owners who believe that family is their most important business.
What’s the point of great financial success if it comes at the cost of precious moments with those who we love most?
We work with clients who want to better understand the numbers that grow their business and as a result we have clients who are –
- Dentists, Doctors, Psychologists, Physiotherapists and Psychiatrists
- Property Developers, Project Managers and Builders
- Personal Trainers, Gym Owners and
- Marketing Agencies, Educators & Online Retailers
- Lawyers, CFO’s, Directors and CEO’s
But most importantly our clients see themselves primarily as proud –
- Mums & Dads
- Husbands & Wives
- Boyfriends, Girlfriends & Life Partners
- Sons & Daughters
- Nans & Pops
- Cousins, Aunties & Uncles
In fact we don’t call our clients ‘clients’, they are affectionately known as our Inspire Family.
You might like to know that our clients are located all over Australia with a strong presence around Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne.
We help entrepreneurs and business owners:
- Understand the Numbers that Drive their Business
- Structure Effectively for Business Growth
- Carry out Strategic Tax Planning
- Implement Cloud Business Solutions
- Keep Tax and Accounting Lodgement Obligations Squared Away
- Set up and Run Self Managed Super Funds
We’re best known for 2 game-changing small business services –
“It’s all sorted” – a proactive small business tax and accounting service that pays for itself in tax savings. Our average tax savings for 2017 was $27,000 per client which is a 3.5 x return on their investment in our service.
“Get Cashed Up” – an 18 month business development service for business owners to double their profit and double their days off. Based on the 7 step method to pull more money, time and happiness from your business from the book “Cashed Up: 7 Steps To Pull More Money, Time and Happiness From Your Business”.
Yes, we more than cover your standard accountant’s’ role, and our clients say we’re set apart by two main things:
- Our ability to provide peace of mind through explaining the why and not just the what; and
- That we’ve “bought in” to their business, shoulder to shoulder, with intention to grow together.
We have a unique approach to providing insight into the numbers for entrepreneurs and business owners.
We want you, the business owner, to really understand the numbers behind what is going on in your business.
We work with you either on a monthly or quarterly basis, not just providing the numbers to you, but helping you to be able to use them in a meaningful way in the day to day management of your business.
We do not charge by the hour (so we aren’t rewarded for being inefficient), but rather we charge a fixed price that you know up front for the value that we provide.
It’s a different conversation and the focus for both of us is where the value is (rather than ‘let’s be quick and get this over with’ under the archaic hourly rate model).
When you come to us, we will agree on a price for any work to be undertaken at the start, then agree to a monthly ongoing amount moving forward. If there’s anything that pops up along the way, we will always agree on a price before we begin.
Oh, and we do not charge for every little phone call and email – this is just part of a working relationship!
In fact 9 times out of 10 your investment in our Tax & Accounting service pays for itself in tax saved. Sometimes 5 – 10 x times over!
That’s taking money that otherwise would have gone to the tax man and putting it towards building a family first business. Woohoo!
p.s. the 1 out of 10 exception to this rule represent the startups who aren’t earning enough money yet to make a significant tax saving!
We’ve heard some pretty bad horror stories of old school accountants taking days, weeks and sometimes even months to get back to your questions.
Our response time to phone calls and emails is key number that we focus on – and we measure it in hours, live on our website.
We successfully keep this number less than 24 hours on average for our clients.
The dream that we are working towards is getting this response time down to zero. How? We’ve anticipated your needs so well, and provided so much proactive advice that you’d never have to email or call.
We’ll get there one day!
‘Turnaround time’ is another key number that the team measures closely.
We aim to have any urgent projects and work turned around within 10 business days, so that we’re able to achieve the outcome without ridiculous delays.
Like a workflow tango, turnaround time on your tax work is a two way street – we need you to work with us too when it comes to getting us the info we need on time.
Cloud accounting
The adoption of cloud accounting software is saving businesses thousands of dollars, and hours of bookwork every week.
We work with multiple cloud accounting providers and dozens of their add-ons but we believe Xero are the absolute best solution for small business.
As a result almost all our clients are use (and love!) XERO so our team know it like the back of our hand (Xero even certified Inspire CA as their Gold Partners)
Ultimately the smart use of technology is all about saving you time.
We go into a bit more detail on cloud accounting over here.
We’re big fans of throwing around ideas on a whiteboard in the boardroom. But what about for the in between time?
We use technology such as Zoom to enhance web meetings and to describe concepts and run scenarios from our computers. We can share our screens and run you through diagrams using LucidChart.
We’ve also adopted online signing software, DocuSign, which is a dream to get documents signed and lodged.
To be able to provide real insights to your business, we need to be in contact with you many times over a year.
Ideally, we would catch up in some form at least every month, but if that is too regular for your stage in business, we can also catch up on a quarterly basis. (Any less than every quarter and we can’t provide as much value to you.
We’re a team of 20 who punch well above our weight in terms of adding value. Amongst our team are chartered accountants, business owners & serial entrepreneurs, ex-bankers, bookkeepers, CFO’s & educators.
We also engage a global team of experts when we need some extra hands on deck.
Why don’t you come on over and I’ll introduce you to the team…
Inspire Accountants was founded by Ben Walker at the age of 23 with nothing but a borrowed printer, a laptop and a simple idea: what if, instead of just doing tax and reporting on history, accountants could give game changing advice that could help people write a better future for their business and their family?
Four years on, Inspire Accountants has been showcased as a global example of what an Accounting firm should be, thanks to Ben’s disruptive approach to throwing out timesheets & charging by the hour, his challenge of the traditional ‘old school’ model of the accounting industry and belief that Accountants change lives.
Ben is a winner of the coveted Anthill Online 30under30 award for 2014, was named a finalist in the Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards and has been featured in many publications including the Courier Mail, Small Business Big Marketing Podcast with Tim Reid, Brisbane Business News & the Dent Podcast.
Today, while he continues to lead Inspire Accountants as CEO & Founder, Ben’s goal is to inspire others create a business that gives them the freedom to put family first and to make a positive difference in the world.
Budget $500 / month for our proactive tax and accounting service called “It’s all sorted”. We aim for this service to pay for itself in tax savings and in 2017 Financial Year our average tax savings per client was $27,000. That’s a 4.5x Return on Investment.
So my question to you is, is your accountant taking money or making money?
We are proud of our team of 20; 12 Accountants, 4 Admin team, 3 Marketing team, and 1 Executive Assistant. Although we are small (compared to the faceless monoliths the founders used to work in before starting Inspire) we truly believe in the words of Margaret Mead who said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” In fact in 2016 we were the ONLY accounting business to be named Top 100 Companies in Australia in the coveted annual anthill online Cool Company Awards.
Yes absolutely. We have access to a team of qualified accountants offshore who help us churn through all the low level data entry work. Unfortunately this outsourcing model is no cheaper to us than having more local accountants but it does enable us to be free of all the lower value transactional tasks, leaving us free to do higher level tax and profit strategy with our clients.
Interested in this service? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team!
Do you need help structuring your business? Getting your business structures right is an important part of asset protection, estate planning and tax planning.
When we look at business structuring from an accounting perspective, what we’re looking at is the legal entity that your business trades through. In Australia, broadly, there are a handful of examples of the type of business structures that you can use:-
- Sole Trader
- Partnership – often a partnership of two individual people
- Company – the most common type of business structure
- Trust – there are different types of trusts including discretionary trust or unit trust
- Self Managed Super Funds (SMSF) – this is more for investment structuring
Business structuring advice - which is the best business structure?
Sole trader
A sole trader is you trading as yourself. So, in my case, Ben Walker is trading as Inspire Accountants. We don’t like that idea for 2 reasons. The first one is asset protection, there is just no protection against your assets if your business is in your name. Secondly, the tax outcome is pretty limited in your ability to plan for tax because all the income ends up in your own name, regardless of if there could be opportunities to spread that around your family group.
Partnerships
We like to put ‘Partnerships’ in the same spot as ‘Sole Traders’, when it comes to asset protection and tax planning. As a partnership, the income goes to each of your names, and with asset protection, you’re trading as a person. And the other disadvantage of partnership is that you’re responsible for the other person’s decisions, and they can make irrational ones or ones that you don’t agree with, and you’re essentially bound by them in the partnership. So, when it comes to business structuring advice, we don’t like partnerships and sole traders. What we do like is ‘Companies’ and ‘Trusts’.
Company
In a company, you’ve got a fixed rate of income tax. For companies that turnover less than $50 million, if they’re a business, you’re looking at a tax rate of 25%. But, if you’re turning over more than $50 million, that is a tax rate of 30%. Asset protection is also applied to the company because the company’s assets are treated as a separate legal entity, or the company itself is a separate legal entity compared to the directors of the company. And that is called ASICs corporate veil.
Trust
Often, when we think of business structuring we’re talking about trust. We’re looking at Family Trust or Discretionary Trust. They are great from a tax perspective if you have a family. The discretionary trust means you have the discretion every single financial year of where the profit ends up. And therefore, where the profit goes, that person pays the tax on their behalf.
There are some rules for certain industries and certain business types where you are limited by what you can spread within your family group. But generally, they are one of the most flexible business structures when it comes to tax planning.
And if they’re set up correctly, they offer the asset protection benefits that a company does as well. But, it has to be set up correctly for that to apply, and we’ve seen some pretty disastrous outcomes when it comes to structuring either a company or a trust in terms of asset protection.
When should you get business structuring advice?
In terms of when you should set up a structure, I recommend every business that is in for the long run sets up with the ideal structure from the start.
That might be an initial structure to get up and running, and then they could change structures a couple of years down the track or at certain revenue milestones. There are no hard and fast rules around this. And it does apply to the growth plans and the direction of the business as to when the structure might have to change. But, you can restructure once you get started, but it can be expensive to do so from a stamp duty perspective, capital gains tax perspective and even accounting and legal fees as well. You might be up for a few thousand dollars to set up the new structure, plus, it could be thousands to get the accounting and legal done and a valuation. You will have to pay for that to get the restructuring carried out.
Some of the restructuring can be very beneficial, especially to long-established businesses where we can see benefits around succession planning, estate planning, and even throughout the restructuring getting some potential tax benefits as a result of that.
If you would like to speak to an accountant and explore business structuring opportunities, you can book a ZERO-cost initial chat.
Business Structuring Services
Are you looking for a financial statement preparer for your business? Have a chat with one of our accountants to see if we can help you today.
What are financial statements?
There is a financial report that accountants put together usually every financial year for different entities in Australia. We’ve got Australian accounting standards that we need to compile these reports by and we would prepare those every financial year as a set of financial statements. Ordinarily, this goes hand in hand with preparing the entity’s tax return.
Inspire Accountants are qualified financial statement preparers
At Inspire, we prepare financial statements for trusts, companies and self managed super funds. There are occasions that a sole trader or a partnership needs to prepare financial statements.
FAQs
At Inspire, the clients we look after are small business owners and generally, they don’t need to lodge financial statements. There are some industries where you may need an order, or a review on your books.
When it comes to lodging financial statements, there is a level that you must report to ASIC. The benchmarks that ASIC say you need to report:
- $50 million or more in revenue
- $25 million in gross assets
- More than 100 employees at the end of the financial year
If you ticked 2 out of these 3 options above, then you must report it.
What we need to do as Accountants is to have a look at the profit and loss. The profit and loss and the balance sheet are the bare minimum with what we need to include in the Financial Statements.
With the profit loss, we look at your income and your expenses. What we normally do is get access to your accounting file like Xero to prepare those. That will tell us what the income and expenses are and even shows us the balance sheet.
What we need from the client is our supporting documentation. Let’s say, on the balance sheet, we include our bank balances. We want a bank statement to show that if there’s $10,000 showing in xero on the balance sheet, that there’s $10,000 showing in the bank account as at 30 June or, whenever we’re preparing those statements for.
We might ask you questions around your income and your expenses. Even your assets and liabilities on the balance sheet just so we can make sure we document those numbers are accurate.
Financial Statements are prepared after the period has finished. If we’ve got a financial year which we normally prepare the statements for from 1 July to 30 June, we would ordinarily get started in the July, August or September following that.
In terms of when to get started, our guidance is in July or September following the financial year end. Your accountant should be in touch to get that ball rolling.
Family means the world to us so we only work with business owners who believe that family is their most important business.
What’s the point of great financial success if it comes at the cost of precious moments with those who we love most?
We work with clients who want to better understand the numbers that grow their business and as a result we have clients who are –
- Dentists, Doctors, Psychologists, Physiotherapists and Psychiatrists
- Property Developers, Project Managers and Builders
- Personal Trainers, Gym Owners and
- Marketing Agencies, Educators & Online Retailers
- Lawyers, CFO’s, Directors and CEO’s
But most importantly our clients see themselves primarily as proud –
- Mums & Dads
- Husbands & Wives
- Boyfriends, Girlfriends & Life Partners
- Sons & Daughters
- Nans & Pops
- Cousins, Aunties & Uncles
In fact we don’t call our clients ‘clients’, they are affectionately known as our Inspire Family.
You might like to know that our clients are located all over Australia with a strong presence around Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne.
We help entrepreneurs and business owners:
- Understand the Numbers that Drive their Business
- Structure Effectively for Business Growth
- Carry out Strategic Tax Planning
- Implement Cloud Business Solutions
- Keep Tax and Accounting Lodgement Obligations Squared Away
- Set up and Run Self Managed Super Funds
We’re best known for 2 game-changing small business services –
“It’s all sorted” – a proactive small business tax and accounting service that pays for itself in tax savings. Our average tax savings for 2017 was $27,000 per client which is a 3.5 x return on their investment in our service.
“Get Cashed Up” – an 18 month business development service for business owners to double their profit and double their days off. Based on the 7 step method to pull more money, time and happiness from your business from the book “Cashed Up: 7 Steps To Pull More Money, Time and Happiness From Your Business”.
Yes, we more than cover your standard accountant’s’ role, and our clients say we’re set apart by two main things:
- Our ability to provide peace of mind through explaining the why and not just the what; and
- That we’ve “bought in” to their business, shoulder to shoulder, with intention to grow together.
We have a unique approach to providing insight into the numbers for entrepreneurs and business owners.
We want you, the business owner, to really understand the numbers behind what is going on in your business.
We work with you either on a monthly or quarterly basis, not just providing the numbers to you, but helping you to be able to use them in a meaningful way in the day to day management of your business.
We do not charge by the hour (so we aren’t rewarded for being inefficient), but rather we charge a fixed price that you know up front for the value that we provide.
It’s a different conversation and the focus for both of us is where the value is (rather than ‘let’s be quick and get this over with’ under the archaic hourly rate model).
When you come to us, we will agree on a price for any work to be undertaken at the start, then agree to a monthly ongoing amount moving forward. If there’s anything that pops up along the way, we will always agree on a price before we begin.
Oh, and we do not charge for every little phone call and email – this is just part of a working relationship!
In fact 9 times out of 10 your investment in our Tax & Accounting service pays for itself in tax saved. Sometimes 5 – 10 x times over!
That’s taking money that otherwise would have gone to the tax man and putting it towards building a family first business. Woohoo!
p.s. the 1 out of 10 exception to this rule represent the startups who aren’t earning enough money yet to make a significant tax saving!
We’ve heard some pretty bad horror stories of old school accountants taking days, weeks and sometimes even months to get back to your questions.
Our response time to phone calls and emails is key number that we focus on – and we measure it in hours, live on our website.
We successfully keep this number less than 24 hours on average for our clients.
The dream that we are working towards is getting this response time down to zero. How? We’ve anticipated your needs so well, and provided so much proactive advice that you’d never have to email or call.
We’ll get there one day!
‘Turnaround time’ is another key number that the team measures closely.
We aim to have any urgent projects and work turned around within 10 business days, so that we’re able to achieve the outcome without ridiculous delays.
Like a workflow tango, turnaround time on your tax work is a two way street – we need you to work with us too when it comes to getting us the info we need on time.
Cloud accounting
The adoption of cloud accounting software is saving businesses thousands of dollars, and hours of bookwork every week.
We work with multiple cloud accounting providers and dozens of their add-ons but we believe Xero are the absolute best solution for small business.
As a result almost all our clients are use (and love!) XERO so our team know it like the back of our hand (Xero even certified Inspire CA as their Gold Partners)
Ultimately the smart use of technology is all about saving you time.
We go into a bit more detail on cloud accounting over here.
We’re big fans of throwing around ideas on a whiteboard in the boardroom. But what about for the in between time?
We use technology such as Zoom to enhance web meetings and to describe concepts and run scenarios from our computers. We can share our screens and run you through diagrams using LucidChart.
We’ve also adopted online signing software, DocuSign, which is a dream to get documents signed and lodged.
To be able to provide real insights to your business, we need to be in contact with you many times over a year.
Ideally, we would catch up in some form at least every month, but if that is too regular for your stage in business, we can also catch up on a quarterly basis. (Any less than every quarter and we can’t provide as much value to you.
We’re a team of 20 who punch well above our weight in terms of adding value. Amongst our team are chartered accountants, business owners & serial entrepreneurs, ex-bankers, bookkeepers, CFO’s & educators.
We also engage a global team of experts when we need some extra hands on deck.
Why don’t you come on over and I’ll introduce you to the team…
Inspire Accountants was founded by Ben Walker at the age of 23 with nothing but a borrowed printer, a laptop and a simple idea: what if, instead of just doing tax and reporting on history, accountants could give game changing advice that could help people write a better future for their business and their family?
Four years on, Inspire Accountants has been showcased as a global example of what an Accounting firm should be, thanks to Ben’s disruptive approach to throwing out timesheets & charging by the hour, his challenge of the traditional ‘old school’ model of the accounting industry and belief that Accountants change lives.
Ben is a winner of the coveted Anthill Online 30under30 award for 2014, was named a finalist in the Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards and has been featured in many publications including the Courier Mail, Small Business Big Marketing Podcast with Tim Reid, Brisbane Business News & the Dent Podcast.
Today, while he continues to lead Inspire Accountants as CEO & Founder, Ben’s goal is to inspire others create a business that gives them the freedom to put family first and to make a positive difference in the world.
Budget $500 / month for our proactive tax and accounting service called “It’s all sorted”. We aim for this service to pay for itself in tax savings and in 2017 Financial Year our average tax savings per client was $27,000. That’s a 4.5x Return on Investment.
So my question to you is, is your accountant taking money or making money?
We are proud of our team of 20; 12 Accountants, 4 Admin team, 3 Marketing team, and 1 Executive Assistant. Although we are small (compared to the faceless monoliths the founders used to work in before starting Inspire) we truly believe in the words of Margaret Mead who said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” In fact in 2016 we were the ONLY accounting business to be named Top 100 Companies in Australia in the coveted annual anthill online Cool Company Awards.
Yes absolutely. We have access to a team of qualified accountants offshore who help us churn through all the low level data entry work. Unfortunately this outsourcing model is no cheaper to us than having more local accountants but it does enable us to be free of all the lower value transactional tasks, leaving us free to do higher level tax and profit strategy with our clients.
Interested in this service? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team!
Inspire’s Business Accounting Services
If you’re looking for a good business accountant in Brisbane, you’ve come to the right place. Inspire can help business owners with:
- Tax Services – which includes compliance such as monthly or quarterly BAS, IAS, PAYG Instalments, Annual Tax Returns
- Accounting Services – which includes setting up accounting softwares, building Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, recording and maintaining fixed assets ledger, designing KPIs, and also helping business owners automate business and finance process with proper integration of applications
- Virtual CFO Services – which includes deep diving into numbers of the business to help with cash flow, growth, budgeting etc.
GST (Goods and Services Tax)
When does a business need to register for GST?
A Business need to register for GST when:
- It has sales revenue is of $75,000 or more or
- If the business is new and business owner expects the revenue target to hit $75,000 or more in first year of operation or
- If its an existing business and sales revenue during a financial year has hit threshold $75,000 or moreTaxi and limousine services for passengers are provided by businesses.
GST Obligations
When it comes to GST obligations, it really does depend on the turnover of the business.
If the turnover of business is less than $10 million, you may choose to lodge business activity statements to pay GST based on cash accounting method.
If the turnover is over $10 million, then you will need to follow the non-cash accounting methods for GST.
GST lodgment rhythms
Depending on the turnover of your business, you may need to lodge GST monthly or on a quarterly basis.
If the business turnover is below $20 million, you can lodge quarterly.
If the business turnover is above $20 million, you will need to lodge your BAS (Business Activity Statement) monthly.
Income Tax Obligations
If the turnover of a service oriented business is less than $1 million in revenue. You can use the receipts method to report your income for income tax purposes. Receipts method is also sometimes referred to as cash received basis or cash basis. Under this method income is earned for income tax purposes when received
If your turnover is above $1 million or is a manufacturing business, you will need to use the earnings method to report your income for income tax purposes.
Tax Lodgement Rhythms
If the turnover of a service oriented business is less than $1 million in revenue. You can use the receipts method to report your income for income tax purposes. Receipts method is also sometimes referred to as cash received basis or cash basis. Under this method income is earned for income tax purposes when received
If your turnover is above $1 million or is a manufacturing business, you will need to use the earnings method to report your income for income tax purposes.
FAQs
It depends on the revenue the sole trader is making. For example, if the sole trader is making a revenue of about $200K, the business of that size should consider obtaining business accounting services otherwise they may end up paying a lot of tax.
Book a complimentary strategy call with an Inspire Accountant, your local business accountants in Brisbane to see if it makes sense to start working with an accountant.
Family means the world to us so we only work with business owners who believe that family is their most important business.
What’s the point of great financial success if it comes at the cost of precious moments with those who we love most?
We work with clients who want to better understand the numbers that grow their business and as a result we have clients who are –
- Dentists, Doctors, Psychologists, Physiotherapists and Psychiatrists
- Property Developers, Project Managers and Builders
- Personal Trainers, Gym Owners and
- Marketing Agencies, Educators & Online Retailers
- Lawyers, CFO’s, Directors and CEO’s
But most importantly our clients see themselves primarily as proud –
- Mums & Dads
- Husbands & Wives
- Boyfriends, Girlfriends & Life Partners
- Sons & Daughters
- Nans & Pops
- Cousins, Aunties & Uncles
In fact we don’t call our clients ‘clients’, they are affectionately known as our Inspire Family.
You might like to know that our clients are located all over Australia with a strong presence around Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne.
We help entrepreneurs and business owners:
- Understand the Numbers that Drive their Business
- Structure Effectively for Business Growth
- Carry out Strategic Tax Planning
- Implement Cloud Business Solutions
- Keep Tax and Accounting Lodgement Obligations Squared Away
- Set up and Run Self Managed Super Funds
We’re best known for 2 game-changing small business services –
“It’s all sorted” – a proactive small business tax and accounting service that pays for itself in tax savings. Our average tax savings for 2017 was $27,000 per client which is a 3.5 x return on their investment in our service.
“Get Cashed Up” – an 18 month business development service for business owners to double their profit and double their days off. Based on the 7 step method to pull more money, time and happiness from your business from the book “Cashed Up: 7 Steps To Pull More Money, Time and Happiness From Your Business”.
Yes, we more than cover your standard accountant’s’ role, and our clients say we’re set apart by two main things:
- Our ability to provide peace of mind through explaining the why and not just the what; and
- That we’ve “bought in” to their business, shoulder to shoulder, with intention to grow together.
We have a unique approach to providing insight into the numbers for entrepreneurs and business owners.
We want you, the business owner, to really understand the numbers behind what is going on in your business.
We work with you either on a monthly or quarterly basis, not just providing the numbers to you, but helping you to be able to use them in a meaningful way in the day to day management of your business.
We do not charge by the hour (so we aren’t rewarded for being inefficient), but rather we charge a fixed price that you know up front for the value that we provide.
It’s a different conversation and the focus for both of us is where the value is (rather than ‘let’s be quick and get this over with’ under the archaic hourly rate model).
When you come to us, we will agree on a price for any work to be undertaken at the start, then agree to a monthly ongoing amount moving forward. If there’s anything that pops up along the way, we will always agree on a price before we begin.
Oh, and we do not charge for every little phone call and email – this is just part of a working relationship!
In fact 9 times out of 10 your investment in our Tax & Accounting service pays for itself in tax saved. Sometimes 5 – 10 x times over!
That’s taking money that otherwise would have gone to the tax man and putting it towards building a family first business. Woohoo!
p.s. the 1 out of 10 exception to this rule represent the startups who aren’t earning enough money yet to make a significant tax saving!
We’ve heard some pretty bad horror stories of old school accountants taking days, weeks and sometimes even months to get back to your questions.
Our response time to phone calls and emails is key number that we focus on – and we measure it in hours, live on our website.
We successfully keep this number less than 24 hours on average for our clients.
The dream that we are working towards is getting this response time down to zero. How? We’ve anticipated your needs so well, and provided so much proactive advice that you’d never have to email or call.
We’ll get there one day!
‘Turnaround time’ is another key number that the team measures closely.
We aim to have any urgent projects and work turned around within 10 business days, so that we’re able to achieve the outcome without ridiculous delays.
Like a workflow tango, turnaround time on your tax work is a two way street – we need you to work with us too when it comes to getting us the info we need on time.
Cloud accounting
The adoption of cloud accounting software is saving businesses thousands of dollars, and hours of bookwork every week.
We work with multiple cloud accounting providers and dozens of their add-ons but we believe Xero are the absolute best solution for small business.
As a result almost all our clients are use (and love!) XERO so our team know it like the back of our hand (Xero even certified Inspire CA as their Gold Partners)
Ultimately the smart use of technology is all about saving you time.
We go into a bit more detail on cloud accounting over here.
We’re big fans of throwing around ideas on a whiteboard in the boardroom. But what about for the in between time?
We use technology such as Zoom to enhance web meetings and to describe concepts and run scenarios from our computers. We can share our screens and run you through diagrams using LucidChart.
We’ve also adopted online signing software, DocuSign, which is a dream to get documents signed and lodged.
To be able to provide real insights to your business, we need to be in contact with you many times over a year.
Ideally, we would catch up in some form at least every month, but if that is too regular for your stage in business, we can also catch up on a quarterly basis. (Any less than every quarter and we can’t provide as much value to you.
We’re a team of 20 who punch well above our weight in terms of adding value. Amongst our team are chartered accountants, business owners & serial entrepreneurs, ex-bankers, bookkeepers, CFO’s & educators.
We also engage a global team of experts when we need some extra hands on deck.
Why don’t you come on over and I’ll introduce you to the team…
Inspire Accountants was founded by Ben Walker at the age of 23 with nothing but a borrowed printer, a laptop and a simple idea: what if, instead of just doing tax and reporting on history, accountants could give game changing advice that could help people write a better future for their business and their family?
Four years on, Inspire Accountants has been showcased as a global example of what an Accounting firm should be, thanks to Ben’s disruptive approach to throwing out timesheets & charging by the hour, his challenge of the traditional ‘old school’ model of the accounting industry and belief that Accountants change lives.
Ben is a winner of the coveted Anthill Online 30under30 award for 2014, was named a finalist in the Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards and has been featured in many publications including the Courier Mail, Small Business Big Marketing Podcast with Tim Reid, Brisbane Business News & the Dent Podcast.
Today, while he continues to lead Inspire Accountants as CEO & Founder, Ben’s goal is to inspire others create a business that gives them the freedom to put family first and to make a positive difference in the world.
Budget $500 / month for our proactive tax and accounting service called “It’s all sorted”. We aim for this service to pay for itself in tax savings and in 2017 Financial Year our average tax savings per client was $27,000. That’s a 4.5x Return on Investment.
So my question to you is, is your accountant taking money or making money?
We are proud of our team of 20; 12 Accountants, 4 Admin team, 3 Marketing team, and 1 Executive Assistant. Although we are small (compared to the faceless monoliths the founders used to work in before starting Inspire) we truly believe in the words of Margaret Mead who said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” In fact in 2016 we were the ONLY accounting business to be named Top 100 Companies in Australia in the coveted annual anthill online Cool Company Awards.
Yes absolutely. We have access to a team of qualified accountants offshore who help us churn through all the low level data entry work. Unfortunately this outsourcing model is no cheaper to us than having more local accountants but it does enable us to be free of all the lower value transactional tasks, leaving us free to do higher level tax and profit strategy with our clients.
Interested in this service? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team!
Visit Our Tax Return Accountants In Brisbane
Are you a business owner looking to get your tax return done in Brisbane? Have a chat with one of our friendly senior accountants.
Lodgement due dates for a tax return
There are few different lodgement due dates for your tax returns. If you’re lodging yourself, Individual tax returns are due on the 31st of Oct.
By using a tax agent in Brisbane, you’ll be eligible for the extended tax return deadline. This does vary depending on circumstances, but it’s normally May 15th.
Tax planning agent servicing Brisbane
Here at Inspire, most of our tax planning strategies occur before the end of the financial year.
However, for the current year, we can help prompt you to see if there’s any extra claimable deductions that you may have overlooked and also if you run a business, we can help apply the most tax effective strategies after the financial year to ensure that you’re not paying too much tax.
This may include things such as adjusting distributions, paying dividends, or utilising a bucket company for example.
If you’re a business owner looking for a tax return accountant in Brisbane, book a FREE 20 minute strategy call with us today.
FAQs
In its simplest form, a tax return is just a means to report your income to the tax office to determine how much tax you should pay based on the relevant thresholds.
Of course, it’s more complicated than this, as people have multiple different types of income, deductions, tax offsets, prepaid tax and capital gains that need to be taken into account.
If you’re earning money in Australia, chances are, you have to lodge a tax return. Of course, there’s a few exceptions to this. For example, if you’re on a pension and have other income under certain thresholds, or if your taxable income is under $18,200 and you have no tax withheld, then you won’t have to lodge a tax return.
However, if you’re a business and you’re not making money yet, you may still want to lodge a tax return to accumulate tax losses that can be used to offset your future income.
If you’re wondering what you need to provide an accountant to complete your return, here are the top five things that we normally ask for:
- Bank statements
- Invoices for deductions
- Property income and expenses for rental properties
- Any investment income you might have
- If you run a business, we normally need access to your zero file or accounting software
Of course, if you have any questions, please reach out to one of our tax agents in Brisbane and we can help you with what you need to provide us to complete your return.
The answer is, the sooner the better.
If there’s a chance you do get a refund, wouldn’t you rather it be in your pocket than the ATOs?
Family means the world to us so we only work with business owners who believe that family is their most important business.
What’s the point of great financial success if it comes at the cost of precious moments with those who we love most?
We work with clients who want to better understand the numbers that grow their business and as a result we have clients who are –
- Dentists, Doctors, Psychologists, Physiotherapists and Psychiatrists
- Property Developers, Project Managers and Builders
- Personal Trainers, Gym Owners and
- Marketing Agencies, Educators & Online Retailers
- Lawyers, CFO’s, Directors and CEO’s
But most importantly our clients see themselves primarily as proud –
- Mums & Dads
- Husbands & Wives
- Boyfriends, Girlfriends & Life Partners
- Sons & Daughters
- Nans & Pops
- Cousins, Aunties & Uncles
In fact we don’t call our clients ‘clients’, they are affectionately known as our Inspire Family.
You might like to know that our clients are located all over Australia with a strong presence around Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne.
We help entrepreneurs and business owners:
- Understand the Numbers that Drive their Business
- Structure Effectively for Business Growth
- Carry out Strategic Tax Planning
- Implement Cloud Business Solutions
- Keep Tax and Accounting Lodgement Obligations Squared Away
- Set up and Run Self Managed Super Funds
We’re best known for 2 game-changing small business services –
“It’s all sorted” – a proactive small business tax and accounting service that pays for itself in tax savings. Our average tax savings for 2017 was $27,000 per client which is a 3.5 x return on their investment in our service.
“Get Cashed Up” – an 18 month business development service for business owners to double their profit and double their days off. Based on the 7 step method to pull more money, time and happiness from your business from the book “Cashed Up: 7 Steps To Pull More Money, Time and Happiness From Your Business”.
Yes, we more than cover your standard accountant’s’ role, and our clients say we’re set apart by two main things:
- Our ability to provide peace of mind through explaining the why and not just the what; and
- That we’ve “bought in” to their business, shoulder to shoulder, with intention to grow together.
We have a unique approach to providing insight into the numbers for entrepreneurs and business owners.
We want you, the business owner, to really understand the numbers behind what is going on in your business.
We work with you either on a monthly or quarterly basis, not just providing the numbers to you, but helping you to be able to use them in a meaningful way in the day to day management of your business.
We do not charge by the hour (so we aren’t rewarded for being inefficient), but rather we charge a fixed price that you know up front for the value that we provide.
It’s a different conversation and the focus for both of us is where the value is (rather than ‘let’s be quick and get this over with’ under the archaic hourly rate model).
When you come to us, we will agree on a price for any work to be undertaken at the start, then agree to a monthly ongoing amount moving forward. If there’s anything that pops up along the way, we will always agree on a price before we begin.
Oh, and we do not charge for every little phone call and email – this is just part of a working relationship!
In fact 9 times out of 10 your investment in our Tax & Accounting service pays for itself in tax saved. Sometimes 5 – 10 x times over!
That’s taking money that otherwise would have gone to the tax man and putting it towards building a family first business. Woohoo!
p.s. the 1 out of 10 exception to this rule represent the startups who aren’t earning enough money yet to make a significant tax saving!
We’ve heard some pretty bad horror stories of old school accountants taking days, weeks and sometimes even months to get back to your questions.
Our response time to phone calls and emails is key number that we focus on – and we measure it in hours, live on our website.
We successfully keep this number less than 24 hours on average for our clients.
The dream that we are working towards is getting this response time down to zero. How? We’ve anticipated your needs so well, and provided so much proactive advice that you’d never have to email or call.
We’ll get there one day!
‘Turnaround time’ is another key number that the team measures closely.
We aim to have any urgent projects and work turned around within 10 business days, so that we’re able to achieve the outcome without ridiculous delays.
Like a workflow tango, turnaround time on your tax work is a two way street – we need you to work with us too when it comes to getting us the info we need on time.
Cloud accounting
The adoption of cloud accounting software is saving businesses thousands of dollars, and hours of bookwork every week.
We work with multiple cloud accounting providers and dozens of their add-ons but we believe Xero are the absolute best solution for small business.
As a result almost all our clients are use (and love!) XERO so our team know it like the back of our hand (Xero even certified Inspire CA as their Gold Partners)
Ultimately the smart use of technology is all about saving you time.
We go into a bit more detail on cloud accounting over here.
We’re big fans of throwing around ideas on a whiteboard in the boardroom. But what about for the in between time?
We use technology such as Zoom to enhance web meetings and to describe concepts and run scenarios from our computers. We can share our screens and run you through diagrams using LucidChart.
We’ve also adopted online signing software, DocuSign, which is a dream to get documents signed and lodged.
To be able to provide real insights to your business, we need to be in contact with you many times over a year.
Ideally, we would catch up in some form at least every month, but if that is too regular for your stage in business, we can also catch up on a quarterly basis. (Any less than every quarter and we can’t provide as much value to you.
We’re a team of 20 who punch well above our weight in terms of adding value. Amongst our team are chartered accountants, business owners & serial entrepreneurs, ex-bankers, bookkeepers, CFO’s & educators.
We also engage a global team of experts when we need some extra hands on deck.
Why don’t you come on over and I’ll introduce you to the team…
Inspire Accountants was founded by Ben Walker at the age of 23 with nothing but a borrowed printer, a laptop and a simple idea: what if, instead of just doing tax and reporting on history, accountants could give game changing advice that could help people write a better future for their business and their family?
Four years on, Inspire Accountants has been showcased as a global example of what an Accounting firm should be, thanks to Ben’s disruptive approach to throwing out timesheets & charging by the hour, his challenge of the traditional ‘old school’ model of the accounting industry and belief that Accountants change lives.
Ben is a winner of the coveted Anthill Online 30under30 award for 2014, was named a finalist in the Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards and has been featured in many publications including the Courier Mail, Small Business Big Marketing Podcast with Tim Reid, Brisbane Business News & the Dent Podcast.
Today, while he continues to lead Inspire Accountants as CEO & Founder, Ben’s goal is to inspire others create a business that gives them the freedom to put family first and to make a positive difference in the world.
Budget $500 / month for our proactive tax and accounting service called “It’s all sorted”. We aim for this service to pay for itself in tax savings and in 2017 Financial Year our average tax savings per client was $27,000. That’s a 4.5x Return on Investment.
So my question to you is, is your accountant taking money or making money?
We are proud of our team of 20; 12 Accountants, 4 Admin team, 3 Marketing team, and 1 Executive Assistant. Although we are small (compared to the faceless monoliths the founders used to work in before starting Inspire) we truly believe in the words of Margaret Mead who said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” In fact in 2016 we were the ONLY accounting business to be named Top 100 Companies in Australia in the coveted annual anthill online Cool Company Awards.
Yes absolutely. We have access to a team of qualified accountants offshore who help us churn through all the low level data entry work. Unfortunately this outsourcing model is no cheaper to us than having more local accountants but it does enable us to be free of all the lower value transactional tasks, leaving us free to do higher level tax and profit strategy with our clients.
Interested in this service? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team!
Building wealth as a business owner
At Inspire, as your Accountants, we ask you questions to make sure you keep a focus on growing your family’s wealth.
Most business owners we’ve seen put so much energy and effort into their business that they often forget that there’s a bigger picture that they’re working for. Unfortunately, some of the stresses of business keep us down in the trenches, rather than taking stock for a moment to see what the biggest strategy is.
What I want to encourage business owners to do is to make sure you keep an eye on where your family wealth is going and make sure you’re growing wealth outside of your business. You never want to be at the end of your career or your business life, and your business is your only asset – there’s a few problems with that…
The first problem is that you’ve got little to no diversification in assets, so you’re relying on your business sale value to help you in retirement. That can be quite risky if your business is susceptible to external risk factors, or even internal risks where it could be your own health, age or your own desire to keep growing the business that could affect that one asset.
Therefore, we need to make sure that throughout our lifetime, we’re keeping an eye on the future, putting money away, making investments outside of our business, but also to provide for secondary income sources as well. So yes, we want our business to produce asset value and profit, but we also want to start creating assets to take the pressure off of the need to work and give us back that choice.
At Inspire, we ask you the right questions to keep tabs on the focus of growing your wealth. We’ll ask you questions such as –
- What are your goals?
- Are you living within your means?
- How much do you need to never have to work again?
These are the questions we discuss during our Wealth For Life workshops.
We will talk about –
- Structures you need in place i.e. estate planning
- Long term wealth i.e. superannuation
- Leaving your legacy
- Are you making investments outside of your business and are they regular?
- Keeping an eye on your property strategy
- Debt optimisation - maximising your tax deductible debt, while minimising your non tax deductible debt
Our wealth framework is called “Wealth for Life” and you can find more information on our website HERE or if you’re a client of ours, we can book you in for a Wealth for Life workshop – just ask!
FAQs
Family means the world to us so we only work with business owners who believe that family is their most important business.
What’s the point of great financial success if it comes at the cost of precious moments with those who we love most?
We work with clients who want to better understand the numbers that grow their business and as a result we have clients who are –
- Dentists, Doctors, Psychologists, Physiotherapists and Psychiatrists
- Property Developers, Project Managers and Builders
- Personal Trainers, Gym Owners and
- Marketing Agencies, Educators & Online Retailers
- Lawyers, CFO’s, Directors and CEO’s
But most importantly our clients see themselves primarily as proud –
- Mums & Dads
- Husbands & Wives
- Boyfriends, Girlfriends & Life Partners
- Sons & Daughters
- Nans & Pops
- Cousins, Aunties & Uncles
In fact we don’t call our clients ‘clients’, they are affectionately known as our Inspire Family.
You might like to know that our clients are located all over Australia with a strong presence around Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne.
We help entrepreneurs and business owners:
- Understand the Numbers that Drive their Business
- Structure Effectively for Business Growth
- Carry out Strategic Tax Planning
- Implement Cloud Business Solutions
- Keep Tax and Accounting Lodgement Obligations Squared Away
- Set up and Run Self Managed Super Funds
We’re best known for 2 game-changing small business services –
“It’s all sorted” – a proactive small business tax and accounting service that pays for itself in tax savings. Our average tax savings for 2017 was $27,000 per client which is a 3.5 x return on their investment in our service.
“Get Cashed Up” – an 18 month business development service for business owners to double their profit and double their days off. Based on the 7 step method to pull more money, time and happiness from your business from the book “Cashed Up: 7 Steps To Pull More Money, Time and Happiness From Your Business”.
Yes, we more than cover your standard accountant’s’ role, and our clients say we’re set apart by two main things:
- Our ability to provide peace of mind through explaining the why and not just the what; and
- That we’ve “bought in” to their business, shoulder to shoulder, with intention to grow together.
We have a unique approach to providing insight into the numbers for entrepreneurs and business owners.
We want you, the business owner, to really understand the numbers behind what is going on in your business.
We work with you either on a monthly or quarterly basis, not just providing the numbers to you, but helping you to be able to use them in a meaningful way in the day to day management of your business.
We do not charge by the hour (so we aren’t rewarded for being inefficient), but rather we charge a fixed price that you know up front for the value that we provide.
It’s a different conversation and the focus for both of us is where the value is (rather than ‘let’s be quick and get this over with’ under the archaic hourly rate model).
When you come to us, we will agree on a price for any work to be undertaken at the start, then agree to a monthly ongoing amount moving forward. If there’s anything that pops up along the way, we will always agree on a price before we begin.
Oh, and we do not charge for every little phone call and email – this is just part of a working relationship!
In fact 9 times out of 10 your investment in our Tax & Accounting service pays for itself in tax saved. Sometimes 5 – 10 x times over!
That’s taking money that otherwise would have gone to the tax man and putting it towards building a family first business. Woohoo!
p.s. the 1 out of 10 exception to this rule represent the startups who aren’t earning enough money yet to make a significant tax saving!
We’ve heard some pretty bad horror stories of old school accountants taking days, weeks and sometimes even months to get back to your questions.
Our response time to phone calls and emails is key number that we focus on – and we measure it in hours, live on our website.
We successfully keep this number less than 24 hours on average for our clients.
The dream that we are working towards is getting this response time down to zero. How? We’ve anticipated your needs so well, and provided so much proactive advice that you’d never have to email or call.
We’ll get there one day!
‘Turnaround time’ is another key number that the team measures closely.
We aim to have any urgent projects and work turned around within 10 business days, so that we’re able to achieve the outcome without ridiculous delays.
Like a workflow tango, turnaround time on your tax work is a two way street – we need you to work with us too when it comes to getting us the info we need on time.
Cloud accounting
The adoption of cloud accounting software is saving businesses thousands of dollars, and hours of bookwork every week.
We work with multiple cloud accounting providers and dozens of their add-ons but we believe Xero are the absolute best solution for small business.
As a result almost all our clients are use (and love!) XERO so our team know it like the back of our hand (Xero even certified Inspire CA as their Gold Partners)
Ultimately the smart use of technology is all about saving you time.
We go into a bit more detail on cloud accounting over here.
We’re big fans of throwing around ideas on a whiteboard in the boardroom. But what about for the in between time?
We use technology such as Zoom to enhance web meetings and to describe concepts and run scenarios from our computers. We can share our screens and run you through diagrams using LucidChart.
We’ve also adopted online signing software, DocuSign, which is a dream to get documents signed and lodged.
To be able to provide real insights to your business, we need to be in contact with you many times over a year.
Ideally, we would catch up in some form at least every month, but if that is too regular for your stage in business, we can also catch up on a quarterly basis. (Any less than every quarter and we can’t provide as much value to you.
We’re a team of 20 who punch well above our weight in terms of adding value. Amongst our team are chartered accountants, business owners & serial entrepreneurs, ex-bankers, bookkeepers, CFO’s & educators.
We also engage a global team of experts when we need some extra hands on deck.
Why don’t you come on over and I’ll introduce you to the team…
Inspire Accountants was founded by Ben Walker at the age of 23 with nothing but a borrowed printer, a laptop and a simple idea: what if, instead of just doing tax and reporting on history, accountants could give game changing advice that could help people write a better future for their business and their family?
Four years on, Inspire Accountants has been showcased as a global example of what an Accounting firm should be, thanks to Ben’s disruptive approach to throwing out timesheets & charging by the hour, his challenge of the traditional ‘old school’ model of the accounting industry and belief that Accountants change lives.
Ben is a winner of the coveted Anthill Online 30under30 award for 2014, was named a finalist in the Brisbane Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards and has been featured in many publications including the Courier Mail, Small Business Big Marketing Podcast with Tim Reid, Brisbane Business News & the Dent Podcast.
Today, while he continues to lead Inspire Accountants as CEO & Founder, Ben’s goal is to inspire others create a business that gives them the freedom to put family first and to make a positive difference in the world.
Budget $500 / month for our proactive tax and accounting service called “It’s all sorted”. We aim for this service to pay for itself in tax savings and in 2017 Financial Year our average tax savings per client was $27,000. That’s a 4.5x Return on Investment.
So my question to you is, is your accountant taking money or making money?
We are proud of our team of 20; 12 Accountants, 4 Admin team, 3 Marketing team, and 1 Executive Assistant. Although we are small (compared to the faceless monoliths the founders used to work in before starting Inspire) we truly believe in the words of Margaret Mead who said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” In fact in 2016 we were the ONLY accounting business to be named Top 100 Companies in Australia in the coveted annual anthill online Cool Company Awards.
Yes absolutely. We have access to a team of qualified accountants offshore who help us churn through all the low level data entry work. Unfortunately this outsourcing model is no cheaper to us than having more local accountants but it does enable us to be free of all the lower value transactional tasks, leaving us free to do higher level tax and profit strategy with our clients.
Estate planning and will services
Estate planning involves much more than just having an up-to-date will, which is why we offer the services of experienced estate planning accountants to help ensure that your assets are distributed in the most effective manner, without adverse tax consequences for your beneficiaries.
As estate planning accountants, we can assist you with:
- Estate planning advice and strategies
- Creating and updating wills
- Trust establishment and management
- Business succession planning
- Estate and trust tax planning
- Superannuation planning and advice
- Power of attorney and guardianship arrangements
Death may be one of the certainties in life, but that doesn’t mean you have to face it alone. With the help of our experienced estate planning accountants, you can have peace of mind knowing that your affairs are in order and your loved ones will be cared for.
Do you know how your loved ones will be cared for if something happens to you? If the answer is “no”, then it’s time you took steps to put your affairs in order.
There are many good reasons for having an estate plan, these are just the top three:
Not wanting to add to your family’s anxiety or hardships while they are trying to deal with their loss
Your hard-earned assets to end up in the wrong hands or to cause friction between those named in your will, simply because your intentions weren’t properly documented; and
Your beneficiaries to pay more tax on their inheritance than they are obliged to.
That’s why proper estate planning, including having a will and keeping it updated, is essential.
In Australia, if you die without a valid will – known as dying ‘intestate’ – a court-appointed administrator could be charged with distributing your assets and even deciding who looks after your children if they are under 18. He or she may follow a pre-determined formula that could lead to a very different outcome to the one you wanted, which could cause delays in settling your estate. Studies show that 45 per cent of Australians don’t have a will so if you don’t have one, then it’s time to join the 55 per cent.
Drawing up a will is far more complex than merely deciding to whom you want to leave your assets to. An understanding of which assets pass into your estate is required and this is why seeking advice is important.
- assets owned as a joint tenant;
- assets owned by a company or held in a trust; and
- superannuation death benefits or life insurance proceeds that are paid directly to a beneficiary rather than to your estate.
Joint tenancy and tenancy in common
Jointly owned assets or property can be held in one of two ways – either as joint tenants or as tenants in common. If an asset is held as joint tenants, on your death, the surviving joint tenant automatically acquires ownership of your share of the asset (‘rule of survivorship‘). The asset won’t form part of your estate and can’t be dealt with under your will.
If an asset is held as tenants in common, your share of the asset (i.e. 50%) will form part of your estate and can be specifically dealt with under your will.
Assets owned by a company or held in trust
If you own assets via a company or trust, your estate plan needs to address how control of that entity will be passed upon your death. This will ensure the assets of the entity will pass in accordance with your wishes.
In the case of a company, this will involve considering who will be entitled to any shares you own in the company on your death. It may also require an examination of any rights you may have under the constitution of the company to appoint directors.
In the case of a trust, you will need to examine any rights you may have under the trust deed to appoint a replacement trustee and/or appointor or to wind up the trust and direct how its assets should be disposed of. If the trustee of the trust is a company, it will also involve considering who would be entitled to any shares you own in that company.
Superannuation & Life Insurance death benefits
Assets held by a superannuation fund usually bypass the estate and are paid to a dependant spouse or children, as are life insurance benefits with binding nominations (where you specifically name your beneficiaries). If there is no nomination or the nomination is faulty, the payment of benefits may be subject to the super fund’s rules, and this may not always be what you desired.
As part of your estate plan, you also need to consider the tax implications of how your death benefit is dealt with. Lump sum payments paid to dependents (as defined under income tax laws) are tax free. Taxable components paid to non-dependents are subject to tax.
Planning for your own future needs
You should also be planning for your own future requirements. For example, there may come a time when you’re unable to make decisions for yourself because of a loss of capacity. To assist here, you need to nominate an enduring power of attorney. This trusted person is someone you appoint to make financial and property decisions on your behalf.
Nominating an enduring power of attorney before you get to the ‘loss of capacity’ stage is important as you can’t nominate one after this happens. Remember that a regular power of attorney becomes invalid upon your death or if you lose the mental capacity to make your own decisions. An enduring power of attorney, however, will allow your trusted person to act on your behalf if this happens and you are no longer able to manage your financial affairs.
You may also wish to nominate a medical power of attorney, also known as an enduring guardian, who can make medical decisions on your behalf.
Testamentary trusts
A testamentary trust is a trust established by someone’s will. It comes into existence only when that person dies. Including a testamentary trust in your will can be useful for making tax effective distributions to beneficiaries under the age of 18, caring for children or a dependent who is incapacitated, and preventing beneficiaries from inappropriately spending their inheritance.
Tax effective estate planning
The disposal of assets in accordance with your will may have tax consequences, including CGT, that you should consider when drafting your will and creating your estate plan. There are many strategies you can use to help make your estate plan as tax effective as possible for your dependents and beneficiaries.
Some of these strategies include:
- ensuring the proceeds of an insurance policy paid from a superannuation fund is paid to dependents as this would be tax free;
- distributing an asset (rather than the proceeds of the sale of that asset) to a beneficiary to defer any CGT liability;
- using discretionary trusts can help minimise the tax a beneficiary pays on receipt of an inheritance; and
- using testamentary trusts can be an effective way to provide an inheritance to young children.
Tax:
There are many tax time bombs found in estate planning. For instance, an asset you leave one child may be subject to capital gains tax while an asset left to another may be exempt. This could result in each child receiving very different inheritances when you thought you were leaving them equal shares. Also, the tax payable on some benefits may depend on each beneficiary’s personal circumstances.
Asset ownership structures:
Different structures offer different benefits. For example, a testamentary trust comes into effect at the time of your death and can help protect your assets against any claims that arise if your children become divorced or bankrupt. They can also be used to reduce tax and provide for young or disabled children. Other structures include companies, self-managed super funds and family trusts.
Your wishes:
You may want to give additional direction to those you have given powers of attorney. A memorandum of directions is not a legally binding, but morally binding letter to your family of additional things you might want them to do after you pass away. You may also want to spell out your desires regarding your funeral arrangements, rather than have your family second guess what you would have wanted. Or detail what pieces of jewellery go to certain children. Even where the kids go to school.
Estate planning can be complicated, but it’s important to do things properly so that your family can avoid any potential legal or tax issues – especially as regulations change over time.
At a time when your loved ones are coping with a loss, don’t leave them with additional hurdles to overcome.
Our team at Inspire can help you coordinate your Estate Planning. As your accountants, we work hand in hand with our expert Estate Planning legal team to put together your Wills & Estate Plan.
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