Warning on Bank advice to business owners

Some banks are advising customers with business accounts to transfer excess cash to pay down the business owner’s home loan. While it might sound like common sense to use the excess cash in your business, there are significant potential problems for business owners who do this.
Money in your business account is the money of the business, not your personal cash. You can’t just take it out and move it around at will, even if it is your business.

If you run a company, there are a set of tax rules called Division 7A that apply. Division 7A is a particularly tricky piece of tax law designed to prevent business owners accessing funds that have not been taxed at their individual tax rate – only the corporate rate. While these amounts are often debited to the shareholder’s loan account in the financial statements, Division 7A ensures that any payments, loans, or forgiven debts are treated as if they were dividends for tax purposes unless there is a valid shareholder loan agreement in place.

So, if you take money out of your company bank account to pay down your personal home loan, this amount might be treated as a deemed dividend. That is, you need to declare this amount in your personal income tax return and the dividend is not frankable. This means that even though the company might have already paid tax on this amount, you will be taxed on it again without the ability to claim a credit for the tax already paid by the company (basically leading to double taxation).

If you have taken money out of the company account for personal purposes you can either pay back the amount or put a complying loan agreement in place before the earlier of the due date and actual lodgement date of the company’s tax return for that year. To be a complying loan agreement the agreement requires minimum repayments to be made over a set period of time and the minimum benchmark interest rate to apply – currently 5.45%. The rules are also very strict when it comes to loan repayments because these can actually be ignored if it looks like you are planning to borrow a similar or larger amount again from the company.

A similar issue can also arise if you transfer funds from a trust bank account, especially where that trust already owes amounts to a related company in the form of unpaid distributions.

The material and contents provided in this publication are informative in nature only. It is not intended to be advice and you should not act specifically on the basis of this information alone. If expert assistance is required, Please do not hesitate to give us a call.

(Courtesy: The Knowledge Shop)

Budget 2016 – Superannuation

Last week, in his budget speech, Federal Treasure Scott Morrison put forward a number of proposed changes to superannuation.

Here is a brief roundup of what the proposal are.

Lifetime cap on non-concessional contributions
Concessional contributions cap reduced
30% tax on super for high income earners
Tax free super balances capped at $1.6m
Tax deductions on super contributions expanded

You can see by the dates to take effect only the lifetime cap on non-concessional contributions has an immediate impact.

If you are planning to make a non-concessional contribution to your super fund prior to 30 June 2016 and have made previous contributions of this nature please contact us to ensure you don’t breech this cap.

Regarding the other changes they will not take effect until 1 July 2017, so there is plenty of time to plan.

Remember, proposals are not set in stone and could change as legislation passes through parliament.

Once these changes are passed we recommend you strategically review how these changes impact your current circumstances.

If you require assistance with this do not hesitate to contact myself or Susan Stainwald.

Sunshine Coast: 07 5474 8955

John Siemon

(Partner)

Lifetime cap on non – concessional contributions

Applies to all non – concessional contributions made on or after 1 July 2007
Date of effect: 7.30 pm (AEST) on 3 May 2016

The current contributions cap will reduce to $25,000 from 1 July 2017.

A lifetime $500,000 non-concessional contributions cap will be introduced from Budget night.

The current system of annual non-concessional contributions of up to $180,000 per year (or $540,000 every three years for individuals aged under 65), will be replaced with this new lifetime cap.

The lifetime cap will take into account all non-concessional contributions made on or after 1 July 2007 and will commence at 7.30 pm (AEST) on 3 May 2016. Contributions made before commencement will not result in an excess. However, excess contributions made after commencement will need to be removed or will be subject to penalty tax. The cap will be indexed to average weekly ordinary time earnings.

The lifetime cap is available up to age 74.

Concessional contributions cap reduced

Date of effect: 1 July 2017

The current concessional contributions cap will reduce to $25,000 from 1 July 2017.

Age: Under 50
Current concessional gap: $30,000
From 1 July 2017: $25,000

Age: 50 & over
Current concessional gap: $35,000
From 1 July 2017: $25,000

30% tax on super for high income earners

Date of effect: 1 July 2017

At present, individuals with combined income and superannuation contributions of more than $300,000 pay an additional contributions tax of 15% on concessional contributions. From 1 July 2017, this income threshold will reduce to $250,000.

Tax free super balances capped at $1.6m

Date of effect: 1 July 2017

A new $1.6 million cap will apply to how much can be transferred into a retirement phase account. Earnings on amounts within the account will continue to be tax-free. Transfers in excess of this $1.6 million cap (including earnings on these excess transferred amounts) will be taxed in a similar way to the tax treatment that applies to excess non-concessional contributions.

Where an individual accumulates amounts in excess of $1.6 million, they will be able to maintain this excess amount in an accumulation phase account (where earnings will be taxed at the concessional rate of 15%).

Members already in the retirement phase with balances above $1.6 million will be required to reduce their retirement balance to $1.6 million by 1 July 2017. Excess balances for these members may be converted to superannuation accumulation phase accounts.

The amount of cap space remaining for a member seeking to make more than one transfer into a retirement phase account will be determined by apportionment.

Tax deductions on super contributions expanded

Date of effect: 1 July 2017

All individuals up to age 75 will be able to claim an income tax deduction for personal superannuation contributions from 1 July 2017. This effectively allows all individuals, regardless of their employment circumstances, to make concessional superannuation contributions up to the concessional cap – partially self employed, employees whose employers don’t offer salary sacrifice arrangements, etc.This is a sensible move, which means that it will no longer be necessary for individuals to pass a 10% test in order to be able to claim a deduction for personal superannuation contributions. Currently, an individual can only claim a deduction for personal contributions where less than 10% of their adjusted income for the year relates to employment activities. The 10% test can make it difficult for people who have started their own business to make deductible superannuation contributions where they also have part-time work.

(Source: The Knowledge Shop)