Australian governments at federal and state levels have a number of initiatives designed to provide both financial and non-financial assistance to Australian businesses to improve business processes and commercial competitiveness.

 

Whilst the bulk of these programs are directed at the manufacturing sector there are also a number of opportunities for those in general small business, tourism, agriculture, online and green businesses.

 

Australian businesses looking to expand operations offshore, reduce consumption of natural resources or emission of green house gases or develop and expand an emerging technology can apply for grants and assistance from a number of sources.

 

In most cases the financial grants are issued as a dollar for dollar matched funding arrangement and are not issued retrospective. Non Financial assistance can be in the form of utilisation of Government facilities and organisation located inside Australia and offshore or access to industry experts and consultants at subsidised rates.

 

So if your business is engaged in manufacturing, tourism, research and development, import/export, textile clothing and footwear, agriculture, climate change or if you would simply like to explore what government funding might exist for your business please contact your LBW account manager to arrange a time to go through your possible opportunities.

As outlined in our March newsletter, the ATO is still trying to assess backlogged tax returns from their computer changeover. However to further confuse the issue they have sent out assessments without refund cheques attached and sent out letters with wrong information on them. Tax agents have also been locked out of the ATO system by not being able to get their client lists off the ATO. All in all, it’s been one great mess!

 

The professional bodies are now getting involved to help the ATO with this process and have a meeting with the ATO to seek waiver of late lodgement penalties and general interest charge as well as payment of interest on refunds that were processed late by the ATO. The Inspector General of Taxation has now also become involved and will be reviewing the performance of this changeover project by the ATO.

 

We will keep you advised of any further action that can be taken against the ATO.

At the other end of the superannuation lifecycle, the ATO has recently announced that if a member of a fund does not take out the required amount of pension payments for the year as required, the pension member will lose the tax exemption on the investment earnings of the fund.

 

As a result, we suggest that anyone who is taking a pension from their super fund, confirm what their minimum pension withdrawal amounts are for the 2010 financial year and take it out prior to 30 June 2010. If you need to check these amounts for self managed super funds that we administer, please call Cathy Walley of our office.