December NewsICB bookkeepers Network Meeting Report – 2“Are you a director of a company? Or ever been one?” In short this new law will make any directors of a company personally liable for any GST/Super debts which are older than 3 months. They will be automatically liable and will receive the letters of demand from the ATO. Now this will happen when the business is going into bankruptcy and the ATO is looking to get their money, not during normal course of business. However this will have an enormous impact and can lead to personal bankruptcy even to people who have been in the past directors of businesses going into insolvency now. If they have been directors at the time of the GST/Super debt being created, or once these liabilities were in the books- they will be personal liable for such debts, even though they are not any longer a director of the company. Robert gave us a current example out of his practice where one director had resigned and written over all his shares to the other director as he had wanted to go into insolvency, but the other director wanted to sort it all out and keep going. However the business went now into insolvency. The current debt had been paid, but not the old debts, result the ATO went after the resigned director and made him personal liable for this debt. This former director faces personal bankruptcy over this now. What a scary thought. If you need further information relating to this you can call Robert Moodie from Rodgers Reidy. “Personal Property Securities”On my last ICB bookkeepers networking meeting for the year we had 2 very interesting guest speakers. Sundip Ghedia from Wyndhamprem Lawyers (Commercial Law) and Robert Moodie from Rodgers Reidy, Insolvency Experts speaking about the new Personal Property Securities Register. As we found out during a lively discussion that night this register is aimed to reform the current Australian states regulations and to bring everything under one register. It had been meant to start last October, however due to the complexity of the issue it is now set to start as of 1st July 2012 (or even later). It will cover the interests in property excluding land, water and buildings. The new register will be administered by ITSA – Insolvency Trustee Society Australia aiming at establishing an orderly sequence of interest based on the time of registration. Or in other words first in first served, based on the recorded time on the certificate one receives when registering interest in a certain asset. The second point of interest with the new register is the “retention of title” clause, which in short means that – even if a sold product is being transformed through manufacturing processes, the registered interest is still valid. As you can see here comes the complexity of the whole issue to surface. Furthermore the register is a transaction based process, which means if one has 200 clients, one has to register the interest in each transaction with the register – and we assume one will have to also de-register when it finally has been paid off. As bookkeepers being used to a lot of paperwork we all could see that this might end up in an incredible amount of work for the business owners or a new service area for us bookkeepers. Apparently there might even be courses run next year in order to learn the registration process.(This was an assumption based on the complexity of the issue) After an hour of lively discussion about this and all the issues which we raised in relation to this, our first conclusion was that we invited the speakers back for a further talk next June, closer to the date of starting this register in order to find out more specifics. This will hopefully be a more hands on – practical approach to the how and where of registering interests in Assets as security. So for the time being watch this spot for further information latest in June2012.
THE NEW BAS AGENT LAWS AND WHAT THEY MEAN TO YOUOverview of the New LawsFrom 1 March 2010, new legislation known as the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 took effect. I am writing today to provide you with a broad insight into the changes and the impact they have on my services. Where Do I Currently Stand & What Does It Mean for You?
While I do intend to seek registration as a BAS Agent in the future, I am not yet in a position to meet all of the requirements.
This means that I can attend to your bookkeeping and have your BAS Services provided by ABN BAS. From your perspective, you can take comfort from the knowledge that your BAS Services are being provided by a registered and competent organisation who are experts in their field. How will the arrangement with ABN BAS operate?
The process will be invisible to you. At BAS time, I will submit a set of electronic workpapers to ABN BAS who will use this to perform their quality assurance review. They will contact me directly with any questions that they have. Once they are satisfied, they will lodge your BAS electronically with the ATO and provide me with a copy of the lodged document. QuestionsI trust this has been useful in providing you with the changes that have taken place. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Kind regards
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