Unusual ways in which you can maximise the size of your tax refund

Tax season is always a stressful time, no matter if you work for yourself or you are employed by a large corporation. The chunk of your income that goes towards paying your tax is quiet substantial, so it can be nice to get some of it back in the form of a tax refund. When the time comes around to getting your refund, it can be a pleasant surprise in your bank account, allowing you to pay some bills, make a purchase or treat yourself to something nice.

It can sometimes be difficult trying to plan ahead and determine exactly how much your refund will be, but there are now free tools available to use to help determine what your refund will most likely be. Some people may never expect to receive a substantial refund, but there are ways in which you can maximise the amount that you receive. Once you are prepared and know all of the tricks in the book, you can make the process a whole lot easier for yourself. While taxes are an inevitable part of life that you have little control over, you can control your tax refund size to a certain extent. Here is some advice that will help you to do just that.

Unusual ways in which you can maximise the size of your tax refund

Documenting all professional expenses

While some people may think that documenting professional expenses is solely dedicated to those people who are self-employed, those who are employed by corporations can still decrease their tax bill and get a greater tax refund as a result of documenting their professional expenses. Some professionals will require the employees to obtain and use equipment that they must buy out of their own income. If you are not reimbursed by the company for these expenses, you can possibly deduct them from your personal income tax and therefore receive a larger tax refund. For example, some professional publications require annual subscriptions that will help workers to perform their jobs better, which means that these expenses can be deducted.

Don’t forget to regularly review your individual filing status

Over time, your filing status will most likely change, however many people forget to manually change it and reap the benefits that come with this change. Filing status includes being single, the head of a household, and jointly recording income as a couple of doing it separately and so on. By filing with the wrong status, you can be leaving a lot of money on the table when it comes to tax season. Some circumstance in which your filing status may change is if a spouse suddenly dies or you have a divorce. These may entitle you to a larger tax refund, something that you should not overlook. When married couples decide to declare their income in a joint manner, most of the time they will be entitled to a bigger tax refund as this will usually decrease the overall tax bill and make the most of any tax breaks that are available for married couples.…

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Useful payroll tips for small businesses

One of the most time consuming and often stressful parts of running a business that has multiple employees is managing the payroll system. This is not something that you can do once off and let it run on its own indefinitely, it is something that needs to be looked after constantly to ensure that no problems arise and that your employees always get paid on time and at the right amount. The amount of time that you spend on your payroll system is taking your focus away from other important areas of your business.

There are only so many hours in the day, so this is the reason why many people decide to outsource their payroll system to an independent company that specialises in payroll servicing. You should always do your research when you are looking for an outsourcing company to make sure that they know what they are doing and everything is above board. Some of the best folks when it comes to payroll outsourcing are the people based at payrollserviceaustralia.com.au. If you still do not want to outsource your payroll system, here is some advice that will help you to streamline the process a bit better.

Useful payroll tips for small businesses

Make sure you know which payment system suits you the best

When it comes to paying employees, there are two routes you can take; paying them by hour or paying them a salary. For the most part, salaries are far easier to manage as they take a lot of the work out of calculating how many hours a person has worked in a given month and changing their pay accordingly. The salary method will keep everything consistent and easy to follow. IF you do pay by the hour, you need to make sure that you have the appropriate software that allows you to easily track these hours and calculate the relevant figures for you, rather than having to do it manually.

Figure out the optimal pay period

When it comes to paying your employees, you need to find the right balance when it comes to how often you are going to pay them. Some businesses prefer to make payment every week, while others prefer to make them every month. By having a consistent pay period that allows you and your employees to plan ahead, this will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

Make sure that you are using optimal software

When it comes to payroll systems, there are countless different types of software that you can use. However, many small businesses use the wrong system and do not create an optimal environment for their payroll system, leading to delays and problems that need to be solved manually. It is very important that you tailor the software to your specific industry. If you are unsure as to what software you should use, it can be a good idea to look at competitors in your industry to see what type of payroll software they are using.…

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Useful bookkeeping tips for small business owners

When you run your own business, there are countless things that you need to watch and record, at the same time as looking after your day to day business dealings. One of the most stressful parts of running your own business is keeping your books up to date and accurate. This takes time away from other parts of their business and they are leaving money on the table as a result. This is one of the reasons many business owners decide to outsource their bookkeeping to a trusted company such as the folks at www.bookkeeperco.com.au.

If you still wish to track and record all of your transactions yourself, there are a number of different tools and methods that will help you to streamline the process and save some time along the way. When tax season arrives, the last thing you want to happen is to be completely unorganised and be stressing about all of the different transactions throughout the quarter or the year. Keeping accurate books at all times will also allow you to more accurately plan ahead. Here are some tips that will help you with the bookkeeping process.

Useful bookkeeping tips for small business owners

Make sure that you plan ahead for future expenses

When you fail to plan in advance for future expenses, you may be left short of cash flow to completely cover the payments. This may result in you having to take out a short term loan or squeeze by for a certain period of time. However if you plan out these expenses well in advance you will be able to set aside the money needed to make the payments for when it is needed. You should not only look one year in advance, you should look well into the future, up to five years in advance. It is inevitable that you will have to change your equipment at some stage, so having plenty of notice will allow you enough time to set aside the money and research what the best alternative options are for you and your business.

Accurately track all of your expenses

The last thing you want to do is leave money on the table and not take advantage of all of the tax breaks that you can. One of the easiest ways in which to track expenses is to have a specific account or credit card that is dedicated to business expenses. This makes it extremely easy at the end of the tax year to determine what your total business expense write offs will be. As it is paperless, you won’t have to worry about keeping track of receipts and documentation. It is also a good idea to take a note of each transaction with a pen and paper at the time as this will help you to be able to substantiate each of the expenses if you have an audit. Make sure that you always take details into account, if you write down round numbers for things such as mileage; this can point out as discrepancies for the tax man.…

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Advice to keep in mind when running your self-managed superannuation fund

These days, SMSFs are becoming more and more popular amongst people. In the past, people would contribute to their retirement accounts without understanding where exactly all of this money was going. Investment managers would make the investments for you, often taking risky or unethical investments that ended up turning sour.

In recent global recessions, millions of people saw their retirement savings wiped out as a result of unethical and poor investment decisions from so called professionals. Now days, people want to play an active role in where and how their money is being invested. This is where self-managed superannuation funds come in. These are funds that you can control all by yourself, deciding what types of investment you which to make, for how long and for how much. It provides more flexibility than any other investment product on the market.

You have the power at your fingertips to invest in any type of asset, in any industry in the whole entire world. You can also avail of some taxation benefits when you are using a self-managed superannuation fund. Make sure that you are dealing with reputable providers of self-managed superannuation funds, such as the folks at smsfselfmanagedsuperfund.com.au. Here is some further advice that will help to improve the effectiveness of your skills when it comes to running your own self-managed superannuation fund.

Advice to keep in mind when running your self-managed superannuation fund

Always plan well in advance

In the beginning, it can be an often overwhelming and stressful process if you have not managed and invested your own money before. However once you develop a detailed and smart plan and stick to it over the long run, you will have no problems generating a significant return. This allows you to take emotion out of the equation and make smart decisions in the heat of the moment. If you have any questions or concerns about a specific type of investment, you should not hesitate to ask a professional or someone who is vastly experienced with investing. It is a gradual learning curve along the way, so make sure you ask plenty of questions and develop all areas of your skillset.

Make sure that you put in the work

This is not something that you can skimp on and forget about. When you are running your own self-managed superannuation fund, you need to constantly stay up to date with the latest news in the financial world and monitoring all of your investments in case you need to take action. This means that you should be monitoring your fund at the very least once a week. By consistently researching existing investments and potential opportunities, you will be able to identify potential problems or opportunities on the horizon.

Some people focus too much on what type of investments they have in their portfolio, but they forget to think about the balance they give to each of their investments. Certain positions are riskier than others, so you shouldn’t have a portfolio that is too risky or overly risk averse.…

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