The top 7 illegal employee tax saving strategies in Australia are: Employees or contractors not declaring cash wages. Not reporting capital gains on the sale of shares or property. Not declaring interest, dividend or rental income. Not declaring overseas income like wages, capital gains, rent, etc. Claiming private expenditure as a work deduction…
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The Cook Islands claims to be the first country to have enacted an explicit asset protection law (in 1989 with its International Trusts Act). The asset-protection trust is a trust that splits the beneficial enjoyment of trust assets from their legal ownership. The beneficiaries of a trust are the beneficial owners of equitable interests in…
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The Low-Income Superannuation Tax Offset ((LISTO) allows individuals with an adjusted taxable income of $37,000 or less to receive an effective refund of the tax paid on their concessional contributions, up to a cap of $445. The offset cuts out completely at a taxable income of $66,667.
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There is nothing wrong with being a novice tax planner (it’s actually very exciting taking the challenge and starting the journey to learn something new). But the most important thing we need to do is just follow Plato’s advice and make a start. Over time we will build our skills and hopefully move to at…
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Locating a holding company in a tax haven can be used to bring together investors from various countries who are investing in businesses that are in turn operating in numerous countries. This creates a single point through which all business operations and investors can be co-ordinated without the imposition of significant compliance costs or additional…
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This strategy involves a discretionary trust making pre-tax trust distributions to a tax-exempt beneficiary. If the beneficiary is tax exempt (a not-for-profit organization or church) then there will be no income tax paid on that income by the beneficiary. The beneficiary does not need to be able to receive tax deductible donations (i.e. be a…
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In the novice stage, a person follows rules as given, without context, with no sense of responsibility beyond following the rules exactly. Competence develops when the individual develops organisational principles to quickly access the particular rules that are relevant to the specific task at hand; hence, competence is characterised by active decision making in choosing…
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Without doubt, the dominant legal reason to use tax havens is to save tax. Many taxpayers, especially multi-national corporations, can legally save tax by structuring their affairs to use a tax haven. Apple, for example, has saved US$86 billion in US taxes by funnelling revenue through its tax haven entities and leaving the profits overseas.…
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Delaying the realisation of assets (and any assessable capital gains) until after the year end results in the income being taxed in the following financial year. To achieve this objective the sale contract must not be signed until after the end of the financial year (as it is the contract execution date that determines the…
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This quote by Plato, the Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, sums up the central issue some accountants have with tax planning – they just cannot get started. The day to day grind of servicing the needs of compliance clients leaves them with…
Read More »"You’d be stupid not to try to cut your tax bill and those that don’t are stupid in business"
- Bono: U2