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PPSR registrations due to expire

20 February 2019

The Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) was established seven years ago by the Australian Financial Security Authority and is a national online register that allows security interests in personal property (such as cars and equipment) to be registered. On 30 January 2019, the PPSR will be seven years old and as such many registrations may now have expired, or be approaching their expiry date. If you have interests registered and haven’t checked the expiry date, we encourage you to log into the PPSR and request a free 'registrations due to expire report'.

What is the PPSR

For those of you unfamiliar with the PPSR, it is a central registry where:

  • You can register a claim over property that you have leased, financed or sold under invoice or consignment terms to protect your interest in the property;
  • You can check if an item of personal property has a claim over it. For example, you can check to make sure there isn’t a claim over a 2nd hand car you may wish to purchase which for a small fee is a worthwhile exercise to do.

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Single Touch Payroll, for one and all

14 February 2019

On Tuesday legislation passed to extend the Single Touch Payroll (STP) system to businesses with fewer than 20 employees, changing the way small business employers report their employee’s tax and super information to the ATO.

Legislation for employers with 20 or more employees was passed in July 2018. The new reporting rules for employers with less than 20 employees will apply from 1 July, 2019.

The change means information on wages, deductions and super will be provided in real-time from all Australian businesses, regardless of workforce size.

According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported by Accountants Daily, “there are approximately 781,908 businesses with 19 or fewer employees in Australia. That’s about 36.8 per cent of Australian businesses that will be impacted by the extension of the STP system.”

STP is considered by many in the financial sector to be one of the biggest tax reporting changes since the introduction of the Goods & Services Tax (GST) in 2000.

For employers with less than five employees, cheaper payroll options may be available to lessen the financial impact of STP. If you are one of these employers please contact your Boyce accountant to discuss your options.

If you have any questions about this legislation change and how it may impact your business, you can visit the ATO’s website for more information by clicking here or contact your Boyce Accountant.

Banking Royal Commission's final report handed down last week

12 February 2019

76 recommendations were released last week in the Royal Commission’s Final Report into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, all of which the Federal government and Labor have said they will support and implement.

Click here to view the full report 

A summary of the key findings we considered to be most relevant to Boyce clients are as follows:

Farmers and Small Business
The commissioner looked to provide stricter and clearer rules to better protect farmers in times of financial distress such as drought, key recommendations as follows:

  • The establishment of a national farm mediation debt scheme where banks ensure mediation occurs soon after a loan is distressed, not as a final measure
  • The appointment of administrators or receivers is a remedy of last resort and banks to cease charging default interest where no realistic prospect of recovery
  • Banks to ensure agricultural land valuations are independent and that valuations should consider likelihood of external events such as drought and floods and time it may take to sell the land
  • Distressed loans to be managed by experienced agricultural bankers to reach an outcome best for the customer and the bank
  • No default interest on loans secured by farm land in drought declared areas or other natural disaster
  • Lending to small business was largely unchanged as there were concerns that any further regulation may tighten lending for small business. There was a recommendation to expand the definition of small business under the Banking Code to be any business employing fewer than 100 people and turnover up to $5m

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