2010 2011 Quarter 4 Newsletter Taking Account

Welcome to the Capitis Accounting Solutions group news. We are proud to bring you the Capitis Accounting Solutions newsletters that will keep you up to date with the latest news and information that affects you and your business. In the newsletters you receive from us, we will keep you fully informed on our full range of products and services to enhance your company’s business operations and share some success stories and other amusing tales with you as well. We will also give you tips on simple new ways you can get the most out of our brand-new interactive website. You can also register to receive valuable information quickly, easily, and securely and much, much more! And of course, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to e-mail us at info@capitis.com.au. We'd be happy to assist you! The Team Capitis Accounting Solutions www.capitis.com.au PS. If there are other people you know who would like to subscribe to this newsletter, they can sign up. If you have received this message in error (presumably someone used your email address to register), please refer to the removal instructions at the bottom of this email.



TAKING ACCOUNT

Contents
Capitis Now On Facebook & Twitter
Are You Involved in a Non-Profit of Charity?
Impact of Carbon Tax on Small Business
2011 Federal Budget for Business
Low Income Tax Offset
Occupations In The Spotlight
MYOB Tips: Analyse Key Financial Information
Xero Online Accounting Software
Staff Profile
Key Dates


Capitis Now On Facebook & Twitter
We have decided to jump on board the social media bandwagon, and now have a presence on Facebook and Twitter, much to Warren's delight! Next time you are on FaceBook, search for the Capitis page and give us the big thumbs up by pressing the "Like" button. You will then be able to catch up with what is happening in Capitis land. We will be continually posting snippets of information which we think our clients may be interested in, information about any seminars that we may have coming up, or just general information about the Capitis staff and what they have been up to. Feel free to check out our 'Wall', as we are also following businesses and groups that we have an interest in, as well as any client businesses which may have a Facebook Page. If you have a Facebook page, let us know, and we will add it to our 'Likes'. And if you get really keen, you can even receive our updates automatically on your mobile phone via Twitter. See our links below if you would like to check out our profiles, and don't forget to let us know what you think. If you would like to receive our Twitter updates automatically on your mobile phone as a text message, simply text follow TheCapitisTeam to 0198-089488 Back to CONTENTS

Are You Involved in a Non-Profit or Charity?
DonorTec provides donated and discounted technology products and services from companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Symantec, Sophos and Kaspersky to eligible income tax exempt (ITE) Australian nonprofit groups. Via this program your nonprofit can access the latest products. This is an exciting program to assist Australian nonprofits build their Information Communication Technology (ICT) capacity and has already assisted thousands of groups to make huge savings in their operations. The DonorTec program is provided by Connecting Up Australia in partnership with TechSoup Global. Both Connecting Up Australia and TechSoup Global are nonprofit organisations that are part of a global partnership for technology donations. An example of the sort of savings that can be made is Calxa Budgeting & Cashflow Forecasting software. The Premier version retails for $1495, and under this program, non-profits can buy it for $120! Back to CONTENTS

Impact of Carbon Tax on Small Business
On Sunday July 10, the Government announced the long awaited details of the Carbon Tax. While the changes won't be implemented until July 1, 2012, it is worth considering the impact this may have on small business. There are plenty of upsides; The Government plans to lift the immediate asset write-off amount by $1,500. While this is explained as being offered to assist businesses to purchase low carbon technologies, it can be used for any asset purchase. There are some great tax reforms - including lifting the tax-free threshold from $6,000 to $18,200. Small businesses are the largest employers of part-time employees and this means many of a business's part-time employees won't need to pay tax. This will hopefully attract more people to the workforce - making it easier for businesses to find employees. The Government is also lowering tax rates for low and medium income tax payers. Training dollars have been put aside to train tradespeople to deliver and install clean carbon technologies. Fuel used by small businesses, tradespeople, agriculture, and fishing (and consumers) is not going to be taxed. As usual, however, there are also some downsides; The program will cost the budget $2.7 billion in 2011/2012. With the budget currently in deficit, this will increase pressure on interest rates, although the impact is likely to be small. The proposed $40M over 4 years to assist small businesses adopt clean technologies is far too little. This represents just $5 per business per year! Business costs will go up. This shouldn't affect businesses that compete only with other Australian businesses as they should be able to increase their prices to offset this. Their customers will have more money to handle the price rise because nine out of ten households will be receiving a tax cut or grant. If, however, a business competes with businesses outside of Australia (e.g. the travel industry) they'll need to assess their ability to do this and not have an impact on demand for services. There are some specific industry policies too, and if you would like to take a closer look at your industry, more information is available at www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au Back to CONTENTS

2011 Federal Budget for Business
One of the major changes for small business for the 2012/2013 financial years is the Small Business Motor Vehicle Tax Write-Off, which replaces the Entrepreneur Tax Offset. Small businesses will be entitled to an instant tax write-off of the first $5,000 on any motor vehicle purchased from 2012/2013. In a Press Release accompanying the Budget, the Treasurer stated that, for example, a tradesman on a 30% marginal tax rate, buying a $33,690 utility would receive an extra tax benefit of $1,500 in the year of the purchase. The remainder of the purchase value (in this case $28,960) would then be transferred into the general small business depreciation pool to be claimed in subsequent years. This measure will be available to all small business structures, including sole traders, trusts, partnerships and companies, and will apply to all types of motor vehicles used in business. Whilst this new announcement sounds quite generous, it is actually only a benefit if the vehicle purchase value is under $33,333. Under the current rules, a small business can claim a 15% depreciation claim in the first year for assets allocated to the General Pool. So, if for example, the vehicle was worth $50,000, the depreciation claim would be $7,500, which is more than the Immediate Tax Write-Off of $5,000. But, if the vehicle was only worth $20,000, then the depreciation calim would be $3,000, so in this instance, the new Immediate Tax Write-Off would be more beneficial to the small business. This new write-off is in addition to the following small business measures which will also be introduced in 2012/2013 that would allow; An immediate write-off of all assets valued under $5,000 (up from $1,000 currently) A write-off of all other assets (except buildings) in a single depreciation pool at a rate of 30% (currently, small businesses allocate assets to two different depreciation pools, with different rates of 30% and 5%); and A reduction in the company tax rate to 29% for incorporated small business (partnerships, trusts and sole traders are not eligible for this tax cut). Back to CONTENTS

Low Income Tax Offset
The Low Income Tax Offset (LITO) gives relief to low income earners by effectively raising their tax-free threshold. The LITO will remain unchanged at $1,500 for 2011/2012. Although the amount of the offset remains the same, one important change is that from July 1, 2011, minors will no longer be able to claim the LITO on unearned income they receive such as dividends, rent, interest, royalties and other income from property. By removing the LITO on unearned income, the effective tax-free threshold for a minor on this income is reduced from $3,333 to $416. The take home message is that from 1 July, 2011, this reform puts an end to the tax-effective strategy of discretionary trusts distributing $3,333 of income to minors tax-free. From this date, only $416 of unearned income will be able to be distributed before penalty rates apply. Therefore, trustees will need to rethink this previously tax-effective strategy. So punitive are the tax rates for minors from 2011/2012 onwards, that as a trustee it is in fact more tax effective to distribute money to any beneficiary other than a minor. As a result of this change, minors have gone from the most tax-effective beneficiary of unearned discretionary trust income, to the least effective tax-effective beneficiary. Back to CONTENTS

Occupations In The Spotlight
With tax time now upon us, Tax Commissioner Michael D'Ascenzo has provided advice to taxpayers about preparing 2011 tax returns. This year the ATO will be paying close attention to deductions made by people employed as: earthmovers flight attendants carpenters and joiners (including apprentices and trainees); and real estate employees The ATO has found that people in these industries are at higher risk of getting their work-related expense claims wrong due to the types of deductions they are entitled to claim such as motor vehicle and travel expenses. The ATO will be writing to around 116,000 people employed in these industries about assistance that is available from the ATO, including new guidelines developed specifically for these occupations to ensure they get their claims right this tax time. Back to CONTENTS

MYOB Tips: Analyse Key Financial Information
The Business Insights feature allows you to analyse key financial information using a range of interactive tables and graphs. You can use it to analyse your available cash, cash flow, profit and loss, and the money that you owe suppliers and the money that customers owe you. You can open Business Insights from the Accounts command centre. The Business Insights window presents different types of financial information in four summary panels. From each panel, you can open additional windows to analyse information in more detail. You can also find information specific to your needs by sorting table information. For example, you can click on the relevant column headings to sort the list of outstanding invoices to find the most overdue invoice or the largest overdue amount. Business Insights runs as a separate program Business Insights can remain open while you have your company file open. If you want, you can analyse data using Business Insights while other users enter transactions in your company file. Click Refresh to update information with their changes. Back to CONTENTS

Xero Online Accounting Software
Last week, Brendan, Carmel and Paul attended a presentation from Xero, in conjunction with the ANZ Bank. Xero is an online accounting system designed for small businesses to work with their accountants, internal business partners and staff in real-time. Xero helps small businesses to manage their finances better. There's no software to install, and it's no hassle to set up. Xero simply allows you to get on with your business and not have to worry about accounting. Xero helps to power small businesses, offering everything you'd expect from a full accrual accounting system, including invoicing, managing payables, banking, advanced reporting, sales tax returns, expense claims, credit notes and managing contacts. Xero's banking integration improves a business' awareness of their cashflow and visibility of their immediate future cash in and cash out. The daily bank feeds enable a small business owner to quickly reconcile their bank account and check their daily cash balance. With Craig Winkler, ex MYOB founder heavily involved both financially, and strategically, you can almost guarantee that this will be another solid option to consider for any business clients that are reviewing, or considering which accounting software may be right for them. The team at Capitis are always trying to keep on top of any new technologies that may benefit clients, and we see this as being another option well worth considering, and as such, we will be able to provide assistance and support to any clients who would like to move to to this platform. Click on the link below if you would like to find out more about Xero... Back to CONTENTS

Staff Profile
Vicki Smithyman Vicki attended school in Dimboola at Dimboola Primary and Dimboola Memorial Secondary Sollege. After leaving school, she completed a school based apprenticeship at Doug Clifford Financial Planning while completing VCAL in Year 12. After school, she completed a Certificate 3 in business at WorkCo, then went to work at the Horsham Vets as a groomer and also worked at Horsham Hire. When Horsham Hire closed down, she went and worked at Dimboola Memorial Secondary College undertaking a Certificate 3 in Local Government (school support office) and as a Quicksmart instructor and Mentoring Coordinator. In 2010, Vicki joined the Capitis team. When not busy on the job, Vicki enjoys playing sport, especially basketball, badminton and hockey for Dimboola. Back to CONTENTS


Key Dates
21 July 2011		Final date to lodge and pay June 2011 monthly activity statements.
28 July 2011		Final date to lodge and pay quarter 4, 2010-2011 activity statements.
28 July 2011		Final date to lodge and pay quarter 4, 2010-2011 PAYG Instalments.
28 July 2011		Last day for superannuation guarantee contributions to be made to a superannuation provider for quarter 4, 2010-2011 (1 April - 30 June).
14 August 2011		Final date to lodge the PAYG witholding payment summary annual report.
Remember, these are the final dates. We need your paperwork early to ensure that these deadlines are met.
Back to CONTENTS
** Don't forget our range of online training courses on such things as MYOB, PAM, Excel & Calxa If you are interested in what upcoming training courses we have coming up, please visit our webpage here....

21 May 2012
Monthly Activity Statements

21 May 2012
FBT Returns

21 June 2012
Monthly Activity Statements

30 June 2012
End of Financial Year

14 July 2012
Employee Payment Summaries

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