Legislation and regulations surrounding tax law and superannuation is constantly changing and tax expert Terry Hayes has prepared a comprehensive update on what’s new in tax and super for 2013.
Tristan Webb, national tax director at WHK, says there are no significant tax changes immediately on the horizon this year as it is a federal election year and the government has already suffered significant backlash from its mining tax.
“It probably won’t be a big year, but being an election year there could be some goodies handed out at some point,” he says.
Webb says in the lead-up to Christmas the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook introduced a change to fringe benefits tax, in particular for people who provide “in-house benefits” under salary sacrifice arrangement to their employees.
“This was removed from October 22, 2012, so for example a travel agent that provides travel to staff under a salary sacrifice arrangement will no longer receive pre-tax concessions for any arrangement dated after October 22.”
Significant amendments were made to the Privacy Act last year which will affect how you manage a client’s personal details and report on credit in the future.
Although the amendments won’t come into force until March 2014, Alison Baker, partner at law firm Hall and Wilcox, says businesses need to start preparing now.
Under the reforms, businesses with turnover of more than $3 million will be required to comply with 13 Australian Privacy Principles.
“They are similar to the 10 existing principles but there is a specific focus on the issue of direct marketing and also cross-border disclosure to recipients who are located overseas,” Baker says.
“There is also more of a focus to make sure businesses have the right practices and processes in place for managing privacy. This includes a privacy policy that is available usually on your website and training staff on what their obligations are.”
Baker also highlights “significant” changes to credit reporting provisions, which mean businesses that provide credit will be required to comply with a new regime for providing credit checks to people.
“At the moment it really just focuses on negative information and under the new system a credit provider can access a lot more information about credit history.”
Businesses will be able to introduce their own privacy code if they wish to, although Baker says most SMEs probably won’t want to take this up as it involves more onerous obligations.
“Businesses need to start getting organised now for March 2014,” Baker says.
Cara Waters is a former SmartCompany editor. Previously, Cara was a senior reporter for the Financial Times’ website and worked for The Sunday Times in London.
