Preparing for tax time

With the end of the financial year fast approaching, preparing ahead will help to take off the pressure of running your business and organising your tax affairs this tax season.

Business owners can benefit from gathering and sorting their records now, including cash, EFTPOS, bank statements, credit or debit card transactions that relate to sales and other business income.

Records of expenses that can be claimed as business deductions, such as operating expenses, business travel, staff wages and contractor expenses should also be compiled.

For those who have changed over their record keeping software in the past year, now is a good time to check all the information has transferred over correctly.

Sole traders are reminded to lodge an annual return even if their income is below the tax-free threshold. Those that lodge PAYG instalments would benefit from lodging activity statements and paying all PAYG instalments before lodging their return so their income tax assessment takes into account the instalments paid through the year.