Welcome to our July newsletter and, with a new financial year underway, it might be a good opportunity to review some of the recent changes to business and investment rules to make sure you’re on the right track.
In addition to the items mentioned in the attached articles, the ATO is tightening its monitoring activity in respect of work vehicle and other travel deductions, and have changed the rules (again) in respect of working from home deductions. We’ll be putting together some guidance notes over the next few days so if you would like more information it will be available for download from our website or you could drop us an email.
In the meantime, keep all your receipts and document your work related travel (a log book is recommended if your work related travel is more than just incidental and irregular) and keep a detailed time log of your working from home activities.
Two immediate action items for business owners are to ensure your software is now reflecting the superannuation contribution rate of 11.0% and to ensure the employee pay rates are correctly recorded with many award minimum rates changing from 1 July 2023.
Some good news for the start of the financial year – as the inflation rate begins to ease the Reserve Bank has decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 4.1% at yesterday’s meeting.
The CPI was up by 5.6% last month in the lowest increase since April 2022. Meanwhile the unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.6%, continuing the downward trend seen over the past 12 months. That’s led to an improvement in consumer sentiment and a 0.7% jump in retail sales in May, supported by a rise in spending on food and eating out as well as a boost in spending on discretionary goods.
The softening inflation also led to a slight improvement in investor outlook for stocks. The S&P/ASX 200 closed the month at about the same level as in started in May but, over the financial year, it’s risen more than 10%.
The Australian dollar lost gains made during the month to close at just over US66 cents as traders speculated at the end of the month that the Reserve Bank may put a hold on interest rate rises and the US economy boomed.
With it now being 5 years since our last real holiday, Heather and I will be taking a bit over a month’s break in September / October and will be heading off to Europe with our son. It’s a shame we’ll be in Munich for Octoberfest (wonder how that happened). We’ll be back on deck by mid October. We’re leaving Stacey here to look after the office, which will be open most days for general administration enquiries only. We’ll be in touch with Stacey on and off during our travels but its a hectic schedule and we’ll have limited access to information (after the last 5 years, we’ve earnt it). It’s now our turn to post our travel pics on Facebook.
