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Proposed legislation would see the ATO pursue criminal charges against Directors who fail to meet their superannuation guarantee (SG) obligations. An analysis by Industry Super Australia submitted to the Economics References Committee into Wage Theft and Superannuation Guarantee Non-comp...

New data breach rules in effect from 22 February 2018 place an onus on business to protect and notify individuals whose personal information is involved in a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm. In October last year, almost 50,000 employee records from Australian Governme...

ASIC penalties ‘the cost of doing business’ The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) is set to increase penalties for corporate and financial sector misconduct to deter the fines being seen as the cost of doing business. The impact of the proposed changes would be to expand the ...

The detail of the Government’s crackdown on cleaning and courier companies was revealed late last month. From 1 July 2018, the taxable payments reporting system will extend beyond the building industry to cleaning and courier businesses. This means that these businesses will need to repor...

Legislation restricting access to the small business company tax rate reduction entered Parliament last month. The changes specifically preclude companies with passive investments such as rental property income from qualifying for the small business entity tax rate of 27.5%. For the 2017 inc...

Cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, are independent and not regulated by any central authority. Until recently, these digital currencies were not treated in the same way as cash for tax purposes in Australia. New legislation passed by Parliament last month seeks to change all of that by removing ...

Entities with a global parent or that are part of a large group of companies are being caught in the multinational tax crackdown regardless of their size in Australia.      With effect from 1 July 2016, many smaller entities connected to a larger parent or group ar...

In the 2017-18 Federal Budget the Government announced a series of measures intended to improve housing affordability in Australia. To entice investors, the Government is providing an increase in the CGT discount for individuals who choose to invest in affordable housing. The draft legislation e...

Australia’s insolvent trading laws impose harsh penalties on directors of companies that trade where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the company is insolvent. Criminal and civil penalties can apply personally including penalties of up to $200,000, compensation proceedings by creditor...

The 1 July 2017 superannuation reforms introduced a new reporting regime for funds. Funds now need to advise the ATO of key events within the fund that impact on retirement income streams (pensions): When you start a pension When you stop a pension or take a lump sum When the fund ac...