Individual Tax Rates

From 1 April  2021 the top individual  tax rate will increase to 39% from 33%.  The 39% will be applied to income earned by individuals over $180,000 per annum. All other tax rates, including the corporate tax rate, remain unchanged. 

Small businesses have been urged for years to take their operations digital.

For many, however, it took a pandemic for them to enjoy the benefits of going online.

New research by Mastercard found smaller firms have been among the hardest hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it prompted just more than half of them to accelerate their shift to e-commerce sales.

What COVID-19 alert level 3 means for Alliotts and our clients

From 6AM Sunday (yesterday), Auckland went into lockdown for 7 days.

Level 3 means people are instructed to work from home, as well as non-essential businesses where they can, and limit travel.

From today 1 March 2021, the Alliotts team will be operating from home offices and available to assist with all your accounting, tax and business needs.

Saying the year 2020 wasn’t a great one for the economy is a bit of an understatement.

Shops shuttered, businesses were forced to close or, worse, go bust, and unemployment hit 1 million people as sectors like hospitality and tourism were decimated.

But economist Chris Richardson, from Deloitte Access Economics, is upbeat about 2021 — so much so, his business outlook for the year is: “We got this.”

He expects Australia will see some important recovery this year provided vaccines start to be administered in Australia from next month, state borders remain mostly open and virus numbers remain suppressed.

So what are his key predictions?

For many, 2020 has been the year to forget.

The Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has halted global economies and initiated recessions across continents and countries, including Australia.

In an attempt to alleviate the financial impact of COVID-19, the Australian Government has implemented various reforms (both temporary and permanent) designed to provide relief to financially distressed businesses. One sector hardest hit is that of small businesses and the Australian Government has now finalised a new restructuring process for small businesses, commencing on 1 January 2021. 

COVID-19 a tailwind for Xero as digitisation trend ramps up

Xero chief executive Steve Vamos says faster adoption of digital technologies by small businesses and big companies during the coronavirus pandemic is underpinning subscriber and revenue growth for the accounting software platform.

The Auckland-based, ASX listed company reported revenue of $NZ409.8 million, an increase of 21 per cent, compared to the same period last year in its half year earnings released this month.

Mr Vamos told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald while Covid 19 raised significant challenges it had also driven the faster adoption of digital technologies such as Xero’s products.

The world’s in a ‘global liquidity trap’. What does that mean for Australia?

Last week, something notable occurred.

Two days out from the US presidential election, the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund issued a warning.

She said the global economy was in a “liquidity trap”.

From the desk of Alliott Group APAC Chair, Vanessa Williams

At the time of writing the last APAC update, our team was back in the office and things were finally getting back to normal.

Retail in NZ had a mini boom, people were spending again, restaurants were full and then just like that on 12th August Auckland went to COVID-19 Alert Level 3. Once more we were working remotely.  Now we are back in the office (hopefully for the long term) and it’s just months away from Christmas. What a year it’s been!

Budget winners and losers revealed

The Australian Government is set to deliver one of the most important budgets since World War II on Tuesday night.

It’s expected to include a staggering amount of spending and the biggest deficit in Australia’s history as the government tries to kickstart the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

But even with such a large amount of spending, not everyone will be a winner, here’s what we know about the Budget so far.

Small businesses are the backbone of the Australian economy, but there’s no denying it’s sometimes tough going to stay afloat – especially with disruptions outside of your control.

To help your business stay competitive and keep your cash flow steady, here are 22 ways to reduce costs, courtesy of Business Australia:

https://alliottnz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Business-Australia_cost-reduction_checklist-1.pdf

Source: Retrieved from https://alliottnz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Business-Australia_cost-reduction_checklist-1.pdf (2020)