Welcome to our July 2020 newsletter.

Amidst a year plagued by the worst pandemic in over a century, we have somehow managed to reach a new financial year (although I think we all wish it was a new calendar year!).

In this bulletin, we will look at some of the tax highlights, both due to COVID-19 and the new financial year, that may be of interest to you and your business.

As usual, please contact us directly for specific advice or further information about anything you read here.

We wish you all the best navigating through this new financial year and hope that you, your families and your businesses stay healthy throughout these difficult times.

Click here to read the newsletter: Newsletter July 2020

Following on from our post last Friday, of the latest details of the Federal Government’s JobKeeper Stimulus Package, we are now pleased to provide a summary of State (& Territory) COVID-19 Stimulus Packages.

Whilst the majority of our clients are Queensland specific, a number of clients have interests in multi-state jurisdictions.

Therefore, we provide the full package, as prepared, requiring a partial ’scroll-down’ to get to Queensland.

Please click on the below link to view the document.

https://www.lutzassoc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/SandT-COVID19-checklist.pdf

Again, our membership allows our firm to pass this newsletter on, in its current format.

Please do not hesitate to contact our office on 07 5532 4555 if we can assist further.

Regards,

The Lutz Team.

As many of you would be aware, a wage subsidy payment directly from the Government to “eligible employers” (called the JobKeeper Payment) has been just been announced and legislated. The payment will be $1,500 per fortnight, for each “eligible employee” from 30 March 2020 to 27 September 2020 (a period of 26 weeks).

For a typical Small to Medium sized business to qualify, an employer must be able to show it has/will suffer a decline in its “projected turnover” (i.e. projected income/sales) by at least 30% for either a calendar month, from March 2020 to September 2020, or for the quarters ending 30 June 2020, or 30 September 2020. Applications applying to later periods will not be eligible for the JobKeeper payments in earlier periods.

As the JobKeeper payment is aimed to encourage employers to retain staff, “eligible employers” are then required to pay each eligible employee at least $1,500 per fortnight during the period.

Please also note, either: a sole trader, a partner in partnership, a shareholder/director of a company or a beneficiary of a trust can also receive the JobKeeper payment, if they are ‘actively engaged’ in the business, but not officially employed as an employee (in certain circumstances). However, only one individual is permissible, per entity application.

For more specific and detailed information surrounding the JobKeeper payment, please click on the below link, that we can share with you, as a subscribing member of the NTAA:

NTAA Paper: JKP 15.04.20

If you believe your business will qualify for the JobKeeper payment, details of how to enrol and apply are contained in the link below:

https://www.ato.gov.au/general/jobkeeper-payment/employers/enrol-and-apply-for-the-jobkeeper-payment/

You can enrol anytime from Monday 20th April through to Sunday 26th April, for the month of April. Due to this very short enrolment period, we strongly urge you to enrol as early as possible.

Before enrolling, you will need to ensure you have registered for your myGovID, linked it to your business and have access to the Business Portal, for the applying entity. In our experience, registering your myGovID can be a tricky process, so we suggest setting this up as soon as possible.

If you are not sure whether your business can qualify for the JobKeeper payment and you would like to discuss further, or if you have any other questions relating to this, please do not hesitate to contact our office on 07 5532 4555.

Kind Regards
The Lutz Team

Earlier this week, the Federal Government announced the extraordinary “Job Keeper” stimulus package, which will see it pay the salaries of up to six million Australians employed and hence, provide much needed financial relief for many businesses during this uncertain time.

With an offer of $1,500 per fortnight, per ‘eligible employee’, many questions arise.

To address many of the queries our office has fielded so far, we have compiled the attached information as a general guide, which may assist you in following the guidelines and rules as they have currently been announced by the Australian Government.

At this point however, there is no draft legislation available and even the ATO have been unable to provide the specific information required for many businesses, at this point. It is however, in this context that we offer this information as a general guide at this stage.

Click here to view the document: https://www.lutzassoc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Job-Keeper-Stimulus-Package.pdf

Click here to register your interest with the ATO: https://www.ato.gov.au/general/gen/JobKeeper-payment/

We will continue to bring you more information, on both this package and other government announcements, as they come to light.

In the meantime, should you wish to discuss any of this in further detail, please contact our office on 07 5532 4555.

We look forward to assisting you where we can, to get through these challenging times.

Kind Regards
Steven Lutz & Team

As the impact of the coronavirus continues to evolve, we, along with many of you, face further uncertainty and inevitably challenging times ahead.

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all of us and we wanted to let you know how we are addressing it for the foreseeable future.

Our top priority is to protect the health and well being of our employees, clients and families.

Another top priority of ours is you, our clients, and your businesses.

Currently we are open and trading as normal. We have increased the cleaning and hygiene practices within our office and are complying with government instructions to help combat the spread of the virus.

We have some staff already working remotely, with measures in place to facilitate the rest of our team to work remotely, should this be best practice in the coming days or weeks.

We kindly ask that you please bear with us as we navigate these times of change.

We are fully committed to continuing to serve our clients, striving to provide solutions and professional services, with minimal disruption, where possible.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: ATO RELIEF

Businesses impacted by the coronavirus should contact the ATO to discuss relief options.

Options include:

• Deferring by up to four months – the payment date of amounts due through the Business Activity Statements (BAS), including: PAYG instalments, income tax assessments, FBT assessments and excise.
• Allowing businesses on a quarterly reporting cycle, to opt into monthly GST reporting, in order to get quicker access to GST refunds they may be entitled to.
• Allowing businesses to vary PAYG instalment amounts to zero for the March 2020 quarter. Those that do so, can also claim a refund for any instalments made for the: September 2019 and December 2019 quarters.
• Remitting any interest and penalties, incurred on or after 23 January 2020, that have been applied to tax liabilities.
• Working with affected businesses to help them pay their existing and ongoing tax liabilities by allowing them to enter into low-interest payment plans.

Please note that all of the above options must be applied for. Please contact the ATO directly on 1800 806 218 or contact our office, for assistance.

Please note: Superannuation Guarantee obligations, remain the same at present, meaning payable as per usual.

FURTHER INFORMATION: GOVERNMENT STIMULUS PACKAGES

We also attach below, some important and helpful information regarding the Government’s stimulus packages and updates that may be useful for your businesses.

As usual, none of this is provided as advice, but merely trying to breakdown some of the information and provide some helpful resources all in the one place.

We hope you find some value out of these documents, and encourage you to reach out and contact us should you have any questions or require further explanation.

Government Stimulus Package: https://www.lutzassoc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Coronavirus-special-update.pdf

Payroll Tax Relief: https://www.lutzassoc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/payroll-tax-relief-QLD-as-at-Tues-24-March-2020.pdf

We thank you for your understanding during these times.

Should you wish to discuss any of this in further detail, please contact our office on 07 5532 4555.

– The Lutz Team.

With technology now at the forefront of almost everything we do, our aim is to utilise it more than ever, to enhance efficiencies and streamline client communication.

We understand that in our role as a professional services firm, we are responsible for extremely sensitive and confidential information. Therefore, we must remain vigilant in keeping this information secure and minimising the risk of exposure to hackers and the ill-intentioned.

We also understand that as a document intensive business, paper production has a significant impact on our environment. By utilising technology, we can dramatically reduce our carbon footprint and conserve natural resources and landfill space.

Will all of this in mind, we are pleased to offer an exciting new service, which will transform the way you sign and return documents to us.

Enter, DocuSign.

What is DocuSign?

DocuSign is a cloud-based, electronic signature service that allows you, our clients, to receive, sign and return documents to us with just a few simple clicks.
No more printing, signing, scanning and emailing back signed documents. And certainly no more visits to roadside post boxes or your local post office.

Is DocuSign Secure and legally binding?

Under Australian law, a written signature is not necessarily required to validate an agreement. Contracts are generally valid if legally competent parties reach an agreement, whether verbally, electronically or written on paper.

DocuSign uses world-class security software to protect the integrity of your electronic signature and all associated computer systems and networks that process your data.

Please click on the below link if you would like to know more about DocuSign’s security measures and legality in Australia.

Security Link: https://www.docusign.com/trust/security/esignature

Legality Link: https://www.docusign.com/how-it-works/legality/global/australia

How does DocuSign work?

You will receive an email asking you to review and sign documents.
By clicking on “Review” it will take you to a secure website to access the documents.

Note: You can sign on almost any device with an internet connection – mobile phone, tablet or computer.

Follow the prompts, adopt a signature and hit finish. Once completed, we will automatically receive a signed copy of the signed document.

Need multiple people to sign the document? The same email will be sent to them for signing. Once signed by all parties, we will receive one completed document, with all signatures. No need to forward the email on to other signatories or email us back once completed.

If you would like a step by step tutorial on how to sign a document using DocuSign, please click on the below link:

Link: https://support.docusign.com/en/articles/How-do-I-sign-a-DocuSign-document-Basic-Signing

We trust this initiative will be a very positive experience for our clients and greatly assist in the timeliness of returning these important documents to us.

Should you have any question or queries about anything you have read here, please don;t hesitate to get in touch with our team on (07) 5532 4555 or email questions@lutzassoc.com.au

Welcome to a new decade!

Like most, we are now well and truly back into the swing of things after a well deserved break over the Christmas period.

And with this, we are pleased to deliver our first newsletter of 2020.

Consisting of all the important updates in the wonderful world of tax, please take a moment to click on the below link and have a read.

If you have any questions or queries about how you or your business might be affected by anything you see here, please reach out to our office for further information.

We look forward to bringing you more updates as the year progresses, and wish you well for another big year ahead.

Click Here: Newsletter Jan 2020

The Lutz Team

We are pleased to deliver the key tax and accounting highlights from this year’s Budget.

Please have a read to see how they might affect you and your business.

Newsletter Budget 2019

What does the 2018 Federal Budget mean for you?

We have summarised the main outcomes from this years Federal Budget (from a tax and accounting point of view) and how they might affect you.

Federal_Budget_2018_Tax_and_Accounting

No surprises that this year’s Federal Budget centred on housing affordability and taxation measures relating to that, given the publicity surrounding these areas leading up to the Budget.

To see those areas which affect you, we bring you the overview, fresh from the Wolters Kluwer Budget Team.

Federal Budget Overview