Our Top 5 Strategies for business owners - prior to 30 June each financial year
Small business is always under the Tax Office spotlight. It’s important to ensure that your tax strategies will stand up to the scrutiny of the ATO. Remember you have a legitimate right to minimise your tax legally, but not avoid it. Here are five strategies:

• Superannuation
  

  Ensure that you have paid all your compulsory super guarantee contributions prior to July 28 (ATO deadline). If you don’t meet the obligations you will be liable for penalties.
  Also ensure that additional contributions the company has paid to employees or salary sacrifice arrangements employees have made are within the governments deductible contributions limits.

• Stock on hand
  

  It is important that prior to June 30 each year, you do a legitimate stock take to include a value in your accounts of stock-on-hand. A guess will not be sufficient. The Tax Office, if it does an audit, will be looking for stock take records detailing a physical count and pricing. If you find you need to write off stock prior to the end of the year make sure you have done this before June 30 and qualified your action by doing it.

• Offset capital gains and losses
  

  Both capital gains and losses are quarantined from ordinary income. If you have had capital gains during the year see if you can offset these against previous unrealised capital losses, which can be written off and realised before June 30. Make sure you keep a record of all capital losses. They will be valuable for any future capital gains you make.

• Deductions for bad debts
  

  Remember to get a deduction for bad debts. They have to be physically written off before the end of the financial year. To be a legitimate bad debt there must be a situation where you have given up all hope of collecting the debt. It is a good idea to minute the write off.

• Write off old plant and equipment
  

  Review the assets in your books for any write downs or write offs, where assets in the books have no real value. These write offs must be declared as a deduction prior to June 30.