• SMALL BUSINESS

Setting up a business Costs
Did you know that the costs of establishing a business entity or feasibility studies are tax deductible over 5 years. If the business entity is a trust or company these expenses can be deducted in the tax return of the person who set up the business if they actually incurred the cost and will receive income from the business in the future. Warning do not let the company or trust reimburse you. This will lead to you both losing the deductibility.
Please seek advice on your particular circumstances before acting on this information.

Free Business Tools:
Please note: Some of the following links are to MS Office Excel Spreadsheets
Small Business Fair Dismissal Code:
Please note: The following links are to PDF documents on a government site

Small Business Resources

BAN TACS offices are individually owned by small business people just like you. They understand the pressure. We see ourselves not just as business accountants but mentors as well.
Please make sure you subscribe to our free twice monthly newsflash so we can keep you up to date.

Employee or subcontractor

     There is much detail about this in our subcontractors booklet. This is a dangerous area. If you get it wrong the tax office could make you pay additional tax and superannuation and if your subcontractor is injured or dies you could be liable. If you're paying someone primarily for their labour and they are not operating as a company or trust you should take the test at this ATO link:
http://www.ato.gov.au/businesses/content.asp?doc=/content/00095062.htm&mnu=42711&mfp=001/003

Evaluating A Business

     Eighty percent of businesses fail within the first 5 years. Of course the first year is the most difficult but if you have enough cash you may be able to get past your mistakes. This is not necessarily a good thing. In my experience it is quite often better for a business to have minimal excess funds available to it. Spare cash can quite often only delay the inevitable. Is the inevitable failure? No! The inevitable is push coming to shove and the business owner deciding to toughen up.
     Usually this means getting serious about making money. Particularly, in the service industry people tend to start out trying to help everyone until they realise that at some time during the working day they must make enough to pay the rent. The tyre kickers have to go and you are entitled to remuneration for your time. My favourite way of explaining this is to ask clients how benevolent they would feel towards someone, who was not destitute, yet walked into their home and stole the food off the table, from their children. This puts them in the right state of mind for me to explain that it is their right to choose to spend their time either providing for their family or spending time with their family. Any customer who prevents them from doing this is simply stealing from their children.
     This is not over dramatic. Eighty percent will fail! And it will be their choice to fail, either from lack of planning or lack of self discipline. As for the planning we have a new, scaled down, Buying a Business Booklet available on our website. We also have a disk available (just ring the office) that has a couple of Excel spread sheets on it from which you can build a fantastic analysis tool. Some of the cells are interactive so you can see what effect changes in some of your assumptions can make to your bottom line. Find out what factors have the strongest effect on your bottom line, find your breakeven point and worse case scenario. These spreadsheets are just a template for you to build one for your particular circumstances. Please ask us if you need help.
     You should also read your Buying a Business Booklet before going ahead.

A Joke from Julia

A man owned a small farm in Scotland. The Inland Revenue claimed he was not paying proper wages to his staff and sent a representative out to interview him.

'I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them,' demanded the rep..

'Well,' replied the farmer, 'there's my farm hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him £200 a week plus free room and board.'

'The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her £150 per week plus free room and board.'

'Then there's the half-wit. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about £10 per week, pays his own room an d board, and I buy him a bottle of whiskey every Saturday night. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.'

'That's the guy I want to talk to...the half-wit,' says the agent.

'That would be me,' replied the farmer.