02 Dec End of Year and Taking Time Off
And just like that, another year is (nearly) over. This is the time of year to think about some really small practical things (holiday pay for staff, shut down hours, emergency/break down contacts and what have you), it’s also a very good time to think about cashflow.
Many small businesses shut down over the Christmas/New Year period so don’t generate revenue but continue to face various costs (rent, wages etc). For many there is also provisional tax and GST due early in January. If you’re expecting that cash is going to be tight over this period, the time to do something about it is NOW. The earlier you take steps to sort out cashflow, the easier it is to put a plan in place. If you need help juggling business cashflow or making tax payments, get in touch.
What’s the plan?
A quick google of “small business owner burnout” brings up just shy of 18 million results. Yep, it’s a real thing, so spending a bit of time over the summer holiday recharging your batteries is not only a fun thing to do, but it will likely improve your performance. This isn’t just our opinion, it is backed up by some science, so take some time to switch off.
Once you have taken a bit of time to chill out and have some mental space to think, it’s also a great time to reflect on how the year went – what did/didn’t you achieve? What do you need to do more of? What should you stop doing? What do you need to focus on over the coming 12 months?
The overwhelming majority of small businesses don’t have a plan they can implement for their business. The statistics vary wildly as to how beneficial having a business plan is, but there is general consensus that this is a very good thing. The summer holidays are a great time to start to think about your plan for 2020.
If you want help defining how your business is going to succeed in the next decade, get in contact.
It’s taxing
Finally, we know that many people don’t enjoy paying tax. However, Peter Martin Coleman seemed to take this to the extreme, he only filed GST returns when he would get a refund and no other tax returns. Unfortunately for Peter, he was sentenced on 41 tax related offences to 4 years and 9 months in Jail. That works out to a year in jail for roughly each $230,000 he stole. Read about it here.
For our tax clients, rest assured that we work hard to make sure that you don’t pay any more tax than you have to.
IRD have announced that they are going to start another campaign to crack down on undeclared income, starting with the construction sector. The recent spend up on a new computer (1.2 billion) means that they have far greater tools to identify those that they think are avoiding paying tax. Given that they get around about a $6 return on every $1 that they spend on investigation activity, I think it is realistic to expect to see more of it.
Of course, if you’re letting us know about all your transactions (including if they are all feeding into Xero), you’ve no need to worry.
