The City of Ballarat is offering Ballarat businesses and community groups some financial relief under the “Community and Business Support Package” Business may be eligible to receive a one-off grant of $500 and community groups receive $250. To qualify, the applicant must evidence a turnover reduction of at least 30% over a four-week period since 27 May 2021, have an ABN and a payroll of less than $1m. In addition, the business must operate within the City of Ballarat municipal boundary. Applications are now open and can be accessed here https://www.ballarat.vic.gov.au/supportpackage

Following on from the 2020 financial year when a simplified calculation for working from home expenses could be claimed as a tax deduction, the 2021 financial year will see similar deductions. As a reminder, the taxpayer has three options to claim working from home costs as follows: claim a rate of 80 cents per work hour for all additional running expenses. This is known as the “short cut method”. claim a rate of 52 cents per work hour for heating, cooling, lighting, cleaning, and the decline in value of office furniture, plus calculate the work-related portion of phone and internet expenses, computer consumables, stationery, and the decline in value of a computer, laptop, or similar device. claim the actual work-related portion of all running expenses, which taxpayers need to calculate on a reasonable basis. Expenses include the following: electricity expenses associated with heating, cooling, and lighting the area from which they are working and running items they are using for work. cleaning costs for a dedicated work area. phone and internet expenses. computer consumables (for example, printer paper and ink) and stationery. home office equipment, including computers, printers, phones, furniture, and furnishings; you can claim either the: - full cost of items up to $300 - decline in value (depreciation) for items over $300 It is important that the taxpayer has incurred the expense themselves for work purposes, they have not been reimbursed by their employer and that they are able to substantiate the expenses with a receipt.

The Federal Government is establishing a new Australian Business Registry Services (ABRS) to unify ASIC’s 31 business registers to be administered by the Australian Taxation Office. Director Identification Numbers will be the first new function of the ABRS, and this requirement will be a new requirement for all company directors. The director DIN will be a unique identifier which will identify the director forever, and the director will retain it even if they cease to be a director, change names or move overseas or interstate. The practice if Illegal phoenixing, i.e. moving a company’s business from one entity to another without paying outstanding liabilities, will be a major focus of the new DIN process, and will assist to identify those dishonest directors who are doing the wrong thing. According to the ATO website, directors don’t currently need to do anything, but the ATO said it will soon begin testing the new application process to deliver the registrations. When it’s time to apply, the ATO said directors will be able to use ABRS online services and will sign in using the myGovID app.

From 1 July 2021, small employers with closely held payees will need to report their closely held payees through Single Touch Payroll (STP). ATO concessions for these employers will cease, and from that date the new STP rules will apply. Closely held payees are defined as someone who is directly related to the entity that they receive payments from and include family members, company directors and beneficiaries of a trust. There are limited options regarding the reporting including reporting actual payments when they are made, and in some cases, quarterly reporting with a reasonable estimate. The Small Business Digital Adaptation Grant through the Victorian State Government may provide a grant up to $1200 in some circumstances may assist some employers to access digital products including accounting software. This may assist some employers to find a solution to STP compliance.

Applications for the Victorian Government’s Business Costs Assistance Program close at 11.59pm on 16 March 2021. One-off grants are still available to support eligible small businesses and sole traders in specific sectors that have incurred costs as a direct result of the circuit breaker action announced on 12 February 2021. Businesses with an annual payroll of up to $3 million, whether they have employees or not, can receive grants of $2000. Full details on eligibility and how to apply are set out on the Business Victoria - Business Costs Assistance Program webpage . For further advice, please call the Business Victoria hotline at 13 22 15 before the closing date. If you have any queries, please contact Cluff Chartered Accountants.

Australian Small Businesses (i.e. aggregated turnover of less than $10m) may be disadvantaged by not having the ability to opt out of the full expensing measures. This means that small business are not given the flexibility to choose whether to apply the new rules, and are required to fully expense their general small business pool balances on 30June 2021. They cannot choose not to write off the pool balance. This may have an adverse effect on businesses whereby they have already suffered business downturn or losses as a result of the pandemic. Although the businesses in most cases can carry forward losses as a result of the depreciation claim, profit or distributions which normally flow through to individual taxpayers may effectively lose the “tax free threshold” for the 2021 financial year and possibly beyond. The peak accounting industry bodies have lodged a joint submission to Treasury asking for an amendment to allow small businesses to have the same flexibility as larger businesses in choosing whether or not to apply the full expensing provisions. This would be common logic for many small businesses, and hopefully the proposed amendments are adopted.

Businesses will now be able to register for the JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme ahead of the first quarterly claim period starting in February next year. Under the scheme, eligible businesses can access the payment for up to 12 months for each eligible additional employee they hire between 7 October 2020 and 6 October 2021, and will be able to claim up to $200 a week for each additional eligible employee they hire aged 16 to 29 years, and up to $100 a week for those aged 30 to 35 years. Employees need to have completed a minimum average of 20 hours (worked or paid) per week during the time they were employed in the JobMaker period. Employers are reminded that new employees must have received the Parenting Payment, Youth Allowance (Other) or Jobseeker Payment for at least 28 consecutive days (or two fortnights) within the 84 days (or six fortnights) of being hired to allow for a claim to be made by the employer.

The Small Business Digital Adaptation Program will allow eligible businesses to trial and then receive access to digital products, tools and training they can use to build digital capability in their day-to-day operations. Businesses can start using a new product, like point-of-sale payment, or restore access to a lapsed product under this program. Upgrades to existing digital tools, like adding a shop to a current website, are also included. Products currently available to businesses through this program include website, e-commerce, finance and digital business management tools. Businesses will be able to register, and trial selected digital products from suppliers who have partnered with the Victorian Government, then choose one of these products to purchase. Once businesses have purchased a product, they can apply for a rebate of $1,200 to access the product for 12 months. The program also offers free digital adaptation training and workshops to help registered businesses adopt and implement online tools in their business. Spaces for the Small Business Digital Adaptation Program are limited. You must register to be eligible for the program and access digital product suppliers. For more information, read the information here . Guidelines Small Business Digital Adaptation Program Guidelines (PDF 362.33 KB) Small Business Digital Adaptation Program Guidelines | accessible version (DOCX 1553.15 KB) Registrations will remain open until funds are exhausted or until 11.59pm on 28 February 2021, whichever is earlier.

Legislation aimed at ensuring coronavirus small business grants are not subject to income tax has now passed both houses of Parliament. The Treasury Laws Amendment (2020 Measures No. 5) Bill amends income tax law to make certain grant payments received by eligible businesses non-assessable non-exempt income so that these payments are not subject to income tax by the Commonwealth. However, the grant must have been first publicly announced on or after 13 September 2020 by the relevant state, territory or authority, and must be directed at supporting businesses subject to certain restrictions regarding their operations. Only entities with an aggregated turnover of less than $50 million will be eligible for the concessional tax treatment. VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT QR CODE SERVICE The Victorian Government QR Code Service is free for all Victorian businesses and venues. These records help contact tracers in the event a positive case of coronavirus (COVID-19) is identified. There are no ongoing costs for businesses, venues, or visitors who check-in. All check-in data is housed in secure databases managed by Service Victoria, the Victorian Government’s online hub for transacting with government. Unless DHHS contact tracers request data for coronavirus (COVID-19) contact tracing purposes, it is automatically deleted after 28 days. For more info click HERE.