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ATO Release Risk Assessment for Professional Firms - Bookkeepers Beware!

ABN Latest News

The ATO has released its risk assessment for Professional Firms and some bookkeepers may wish to take note as there may be some ramifications for your income tax going forward.

The full advice can be read here:

https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Starting-and-running-your-small-business/In-detail/Assessing-the-risk--allocation-of-profits-within-professional-firms/

These new guidelines apply to the following professional services firms:

  • Where an individual professional practitioner (IPP) provides professional services to clients of the firm, or is actively involved in the management of the firm and, in either case, the IPP and/or associated entities have a legal or beneficial interest in the firm.
  • The firm operates by way of a legally effective partnership, trust or company, and
  • The income of the firm is not PSI.

The ATO want to ensure that Part IVA avoidance of tax is not occurring in these entities. These guidelines are intended to be applied to high risk arrangements from 2014-15.

The ATO will assess firms as low risk and will not subject them to compliance action where they meet one of the following guidelines:

1)     The IPP receives assessable income from the firm in their own hands as an appropriate return for the services they provide to the firm. This can be determined by referring to the level of remuneration paid to the highest band of professional employees providing equivalent services to the firm, or if none exist by comparing against benchmarks from comparable firms and/or

2)     50% or more of the income to which the IPP and their associated entities are collectively entitled in the relevant year is assessable in the hands of the IPP, or

3)     The IPP and their associated entities both have an effective tax rate of 30% or higher on the income received from the firm.

You may wish to review your circumstances in the last financial year and decide whether you would have met these guidelines. If not, you will need to take action to make sure you do meet the requirements before 30 June 2015!

Category
ABN
Published
23 Sep 2014
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