There is no such thing as absolute asset protection. However, more and more people are seeing the importance of putting a sound asset protection plan in place, to protect professionals, entrepreneurs and small business owners from the risk of losing their assets to creditors and other claimants that may arise. Essentially, asset protection is a legally permissible strategy to safe-guard your hard-earned assets in the unfortunate event of financial disaster.
The law allows for travel, tax and other allowances for politicians, and most people see this as being no different to other professions where employees need to travel to maximize their time and skills for the benefit of the company. Many people need to travel as part of their job responsibilities and no one questions whether their living expense should be covered when they are away from home for business purposes. However, one legitimate question remains unanswered: is the benefit of the permissible travel expense, as beneficial to the Australian taxpayer as it is to the parliamentary recipient?
It’s Tax Time! And the tax office will soon be calling on rental property owners to account for unrealistic deductions. Building Confidence is a useful webpage the Tax Office created to help landlords familiarize themselves with permissible property deductions. Here, they focus on common irregular deductions that are often made by rental property owners, and to help them identify incorrect deductions, and become compliant, the ATO has even included case studies. Here are some of the areas under the spotlight:
The government recently issued a paper titled Re:think – Better Tax, Better Australia in which it hinted at an upward review of the goods and service tax (GST) system. This upward review will include increasing the current rate (10%) to a yet unspecified rate. The paper also hinted at a review of the items the GST will henceforth apply to.
