By now many of you would have heard through the news about the Optus Cyber Attack and the potential impacts of that to customer information and privacy.

Rawson Verco Need Cyber Security would advise any businesses with an Australian website to secure their .au domain before the priority deadline.

You have until 20 September 2022 to secure a priority allocation of the new .au direct domain name that matches your existing .com.au or .org.au domain name.

Ok, so I’ll admit it. The world of HR isn’t always a walk in the park.

With hairy topics like:

• Holding onto star employees (while dealing with poor performers)…
• Creating a vision for the future growth of your company…
• And developing the leadership ability to bring that vision to life…
  It’s easy to see why HR can seem kind of intimidating.

And why many business owners put off digging into their HR processes and structures (often until it’s too late). Because it takes a special breed of specific planning, awareness and skills to get the best out of your people.

As an employer we are continuously looking for exciting and cool new things to apply within our organisation. What you always want to check first, is that you have the basic foundations right.

When claiming expenses relating to your employment income, you must ensure you have spent the money yourself and were not reimbursed by your employer. The expenses must be directly related to your income, and you must keep the appropriate records.

Some of you may have read or heard in the press, of the ATO taking a closer look at Family Trust distributions, which has caused a bit of a stir. So what is all the fuss about?

On 23^rd February 2022, somewhat unexpectedly, the ATO released draft guidance material which explained their approach to Section 100A of the income tax act (S100A). S100A essentially is an anti avoidance provision which can affect how trust distributions are taxed. The ATO are not introducing new legislation, but according to them are merely explaining how they interpret S100A.

Whilst the ATO has suggested that their interpretation has not changed since an earlier guidance issued by them in 2014, in practical terms the accounting profession is of the view that the ATO’s views have substantially changed.