Warning: This information may not apply to the current year. Check the content carefully to ensure it is applicable to your circumstances.
Feel free to pass the newsletter on to your employees and members as it contains information that may interest them.
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E-Record is no longer available
Our electronic record keeping product, e-Record, is no longer available. If you use e-Record you should consider purchasing new record keeping software to assist in meeting your record keeping requirements.
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You can find out more about available software on our website.
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While you may incur some costs associated with the purchase of commercially available software, generally if such costs are for business purposes, they are tax deductible.
Telephone support for e-Record users will be available until 30 September 2010 to assist you with the lodgment of your 2010 pay as you go withholding annual report and the quarter 4 activity statement for the 2009-10 income year.
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You can receive assistance with e-Record (until 30 September 2010), by phoning 1300 139 051 between 8.00am and 6.00pm, Monday to Friday.
More information on the withdrawal of e-Record is available on our website.
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Calculating your super obligations
Remember, you need to make super contributions to your employees' chosen super funds by Thursday 28 October 2010 for the quarter ending 30 September 2010 (1 July - 30 September).
To help you work out if you need to pay super for your workers, use our:
If you have not met your quarterly super contributions for your eligible employees by the quarterly cut-off date, you must pay the super guarantee charge to us by lodging a Superannuation guarantee charge statement - quarterly (NAT 9599).
Use our Superannuation guarantee charge statement and calculator tool to calculate the amount of SGC you are liable to pay and prepare the SGC statement.
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Remember, any super contributions you make are tax deductible - however, the super guarantee charge is not.
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Free superannuation clearing house for small business
The government is offering a free super clearing house service to small businesses with less than 20 employees.
This service is optional and is designed to reduce red tape and compliance costs for small businesses when meeting their super guarantee obligations.
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Small businesses can register online for the service by visiting the Medicare Australia website at www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/super or phoning Medicare Australia on 1300 660 048.
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Free tax seminars
If you are thinking of starting a new business or you are already a small business operator, come along to one or more of our free seminars to help you understand your tax, record keeping and super obligations.
Temporarily working in Australia? Take your super with you
Temporary residents who work in Australia, and have super contributions paid by their employer, are entitled to receive their super benefits once they leave Australia. This payment is called a departing Australia superannuation payment (DASP).
Applying to claim your super earned whilst working in Australia is easy. You can apply using our free DASP online application.
If you claim your super payment, you can still return to Australia on another visa.
Most pre-filling data now available in e-tax
If you have not already lodged your tax return, it is the perfect time to take advantage of the pre-filling service in e-tax.
Most employers, government agencies and financial institutions have already reported data about your income to us, which means most of this information is now ready for you to download into your e-tax return.
If you have not used pre-filling before, here is a quick summary.
- Pre-filling is an option in e-tax which allows you to download information reported to us, such as information from your payment summaries, interest and dividends, private health insurance details and more.
- Some amounts are pre-filled into the labels in the tax return for you, other information is presented in a summary for you to review (such as, reminders about deductions you might be entitled to claim).
You then:
- review this information against your own records and amend or delete the information in e-tax if you have more current information or it is incorrect. However, you should resolve any inconsistencies you identify with the organisation that provided the information before you lodge. Incorrect information could lead to possible audit activity after you lodge, if it has not been corrected and resent to us by that organisation.
- add any missing information which has not been pre-filled in the tax return labels.
Having this information pre-filled in your income tax return by us, means you:
- can focus on other areas of your tax return, like working out your deductions
- are less likely to accidentally miss declaring or claiming certain amounts on your return.
To find previous issues of Workforce education news, visit our website.
Last Modified: Tuesday, 14 September 2010