With small businesses making up at least 96% of Australian businesses we know that many Australian’s are working hard to run their own business. Therefore, where you can get a break to get ahead we want to make sure you can.
Here are our top 5 tips for legally saving some money that you may not have known you were eligible to do.
1. $20k instant asset write-off
When you purchase an asset in your business you can’t claim the full amount in that tax year, it needs to be depreciated over a number of years. However, the government have a tax break for small businesses who purchase an asset under $20k. This allows the business to write the full amount off as a business expense in that tax year. The sorts of assets you can buy include machinery or equipment such as motor vehicles, office furniture, laptops, mobile phones and kitchen equipment. At this stage it is available for the 2017-18 tax year so if you are interested make sure you purchase before the end of June 2018.
2. Pay yourself some super
Many small business owners don’t pay themselves super, particularly when cash flow is tight. But while you need this money for your retirement it is also a tax deduction. You can claim a deduction for super contributions if you’ve contributed to a complying fund, given valid notice to your super fund and earned a wage or salary that makes up less than 10% of your total income.
3. Prepaid expenses
If you pay some expenses in advance such as insurance policies, utility bills, professional subscriptions or rent then you can claim them for this current year that they were paid in. So have a look at any expenses coming up that you could pay and claim before June 30.
4. Home Office?
If you work from home or even partially from home there are a number of things you can claim in your home office. Heating, cooling and lighting bills, a proportion of your bills can be claimed for the area of your home office. The ATO allow you to to claim heating, cooling at lighting at a rate of 45 cents per hour that you work from home, so keep a diary of the hours that you are working from home. A proportion of consumables such as printer ink, stationary, telephone and internet and cleaning costs can also be claimed. Ideally you would have a room set aside in your home as a home office as this makes accounting for these expenses as separate to the rest of your home a little easier to justify.
5. Bad Debts
If you have some customers that haven’t paid and won’t pay then you need to make sure that you write off those bad debts in the same financial year that it was invoiced. So make sure you review your list of defiant payers with plenty of time before the end of June as you do need to have made reasonable attempts in recovering the debt.
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