With the holiday season kicking off, you may be planning a celebration with your staff.

Before you hire a restaurant or book an event, make sure you work out if the benefits you provide your employees are considered entertainment related and if they’ll attract fringe benefits tax (FBT).

This will depend on:

• the amount you spend on each employee
• when and where your celebration is held
• who attends – is it just employees? Or are partners, clients and suppliers also invited?
• the value and type of gifts you provide.

If you do provide entertainment-related fringe benefits, keep the right records to support this so you can calculate their taxable value.

It’s important to get on top of how FBT works before you provide perks and extras. Otherwise, you may end up with an unexpected FBT liability.

You can find more fringe benefits tax and entertainment information on the ATO’s website.

From 1 April 2025, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (‘PHEV’) will not be considered a zero or low emissions vehicle under fringe benefits tax (‘FBT’) law and will not be eligible for the electric car FBT exemption. However, an employer can continue to apply the electric car exemption if:

• use of the PHEV was exempt from FBT before 1 April 2025; and
• they have a financially binding commitment to continue providing private use of the vehicle to an employee or their associate on and after 1 April 2025 (note that any optional extension of the agreement is not considered binding).

If there is a change to a pre-existing commitment on or after 1 April 2025, the FBT exemption for the PHEV will no longer apply from the date of that new commitment.

An employer is not entitled to an exemption from FBT after 1 April 2025 if there was no binding financial commitment to provide the car to a particular employee in place before then.

The ATO has provided guidance about when an individual not carrying on an investment business may be entitled to a deduction for fees paid for financial advice.

An individual is entitled to a deduction for fees for financial advice to the extent that the loss or outgoing is incurred in gaining or producing assessable income unless the loss or outgoing is of a capital, private or domestic nature.

Fees for financial advice an individual incurs may also be deductible to the extent that the advice relates to managing their ‘tax affairs’ (e.g., fees for advice in relation to salary sacrifice arrangements). However, fees for financial advice on a proposed investment prior to the acquisition of an asset, or about how to invest additional funds to grow an investment portfolio, will not be deductible.

The individual must also have sufficient evidence of the expenditure to claim the expense as a deduction, such as a properly itemised invoice.

As the festive season approaches, employers that hire new employees to help with their business should remember the following when it comes to their employer tax and super obligations:

• Employers should make sure they are withholding the right amount of tax from payments they make to their employees and other payees, especially as this will help their employees meet their end-of-year tax liabilities;
• Employers must pay super guarantee (currently at 11.5%) to all eligible employee’s super funds in full and on time to avoid paying the super guarantee charge; and
• If employers are still not reporting through single touch payroll (‘STP’) and they do not have an approved exemption, deferral or concession in place, they should start reporting now.  If they have just started a business or recently employed staff, they will need to report through STP from their first payday.

Individual taxpayers can take the following steps right now to ensure the correct amount of tax is being put aside throughout the year:

• let their employer know if they have a study or training support loan, such as a HECS or HELP debt;
• check they are only claiming the tax-free threshold from one employer;
• consider whether the Medicare Levy Surcharge may affect them this financial year (i.e., whether they have the appropriate private health insurance);
• check their income tier is correct for their private health insurance rebate; and
• consider voluntarily entering PAYG instalments and pre-paying tax throughout the year to avoid a large tax bill at tax time for investment or business income.

If you would like to discuss or implement any of these steps and strategies in more detail, please feel free to contact our office.

One of the many responsibilities SMSF trustees have every income year is valuing their fund’s assets at market value.

The market value of an asset is the amount that a willing buyer and seller would agree to in an arm’s-length transaction.  These valuations will be used  when preparing the fund’s accounts, statements and SMSF annual return (‘SAR’).

Asset valuations will be reviewed by an approved SMSF auditor as part of the annual audit prior to lodgment of the SAR.  The auditor will check that assets have been valued correctly and assess and document whether the basis for the valuations is appropriate given the nature of the asset.  The auditor is not responsible for valuing fund assets.

Taxpayers should ensure that they have their valuations done before going to the auditor.

It is the responsibility of the SMSF trustee to provide objective and supportable evidence to their auditor for the valuation of the fund’s assets, including all relevant documents requested to prevent delays in auditing the fund.  Failure to do so could result in a potential late lodgment of their annual return or a contravention if mistakes have been made.

SMSF trustees should start researching now to find what type of evidence they need to support the valuation as this can take time.  For some asset types valuations must be undertaken by a qualified independent valuer.

Where a taxpayer has been the victim of identity, tax or super fraud, the ATO may apply security safeguards to their account to prevent further harm.  This may require the impacted taxpayer to contact the ATO each time they need to access their information and cause inconvenience for the taxpayer as well as their tax agents.

The ATO has recently enhanced processes to improve ongoing access to ATO online services.  Impacted taxpayers must contact the ATO for initial access and then set a Strong online access strength.

To set a Strong online access strength, taxpayers need to:

• set up their myGovID to a Strong identity strength using their Australian passport;
• connect their myGovID to their myGov account;
• sign in to myGov with their myGovID; and
• go to ATO online services.

Once set, taxpayers no longer need to contact the ATO every time they access their information.

Impacted taxpayers must continue to use their Strong myGovID whenever they access ATO online services, or account access will be restricted to maintain ongoing protection of client information

The digital identity app ‘myGovID’ will soon be changing its name to ‘myID’.  While the name is changing, the login and security will not change. The new name aims to reduce the confusion between myGovID and myGov.

Taxpayers who have already set up their myGovID and use it to access government online services will not need to do anything when the app changes to myID.  They will still have:

• the same details — there is no need to set up a new myID.  Their login details (including email address) and identity strength remain the same;
• continued use — once available their existing app should automatically update to myID or they can manually update it from the APP Store or Google Play; and
• access to services — they can still use the app to securely access government online services.

The ATO will acquire officeholder data from  ASIC and other bodies for the 2024 to 2027 income years, including name, address, date of birth, ABN, contact details, organisation details and officeholder details.

The ATO estimates that records relating to more than 11 million individuals will be obtained.

The ATO will acquire property management data from property management software companies for the 2019 to 2026 income years, including property owner identification details, property details, and property transaction details.

The ATO estimates that records relating to approximately 2.3 million individuals will be obtained each financial year.

The ATO will acquire lifestyle assets data from insurance providers for the 2024 to 2026 income years.

Insurance policy data will be collected for the following classes of assets, where the asset value is equal to or exceeds the nominated thresholds.

The data items include client identification details (names, addresses, contact details, dates of birth and ABN) and policy details (including total value insured, description and purchase price of the property insured).

The ATO estimates that the total number of policy records obtained will be approximately 650,000 to 800,000 each financial year, and that approximately 250,000 to 350,000 matched records will relate to individuals.

The ATO is calling on workers to check if they are missing superannuation savings after the latest data showed it was holding $17.8 billion in lost and unclaimed funds.

If you’ve changed jobs, moved house or simply forgotten to update your details, you may have lost or unclaimed super.

Lost super occurs when members have lost contact with their fund or the member’s account has been inactive for some time.

By law, the fund is required to transfer certain accounts to the ATO, which then becomes unclaimed super.

Even if you’ve retired you could have lost or unclaimed super.

The super health check includes step-by-step instructions on how to search for lost and ATO held super on ATO online services through myGov.

It consists of 5 simple checks to manage your super, search for lost super and prevent your super becoming lost.

You can check your:

• contact details
• super balance and employer contributions
• lost and unclaimed super
• multiple accounts and consider consolidating
• nominated beneficiary.

To start, download the super health check (NAT 75486, PDF 204KB)