Expanding accelerated depreciation

It’s Tax Time again!

This edition of our newsletter outlines some tax changes for 2018-19 that should be considered by small businesses when preparing tax returns for 2018-19. There are also some tax tips and lodgement dates that businesses may find helpful when preparing returns. Focus areas that the ATO will be looking at have also been listed.

 

Tax changes for 2019

There have been some tax changes for small businesses for 2018-19 in relation to:

  • Expanding accelerated depreciation;
  • Increasing access to company losses;
  • Single Touch Payroll; and
  • International tax changes.

 

Expanding accelerated depreciation

The Federal Budget raised the instant asset write-off threshold to $30,000 from Budget night and expanded the number of businesses who could access the write-off to businesses with turnover less than $50 million. The write-off will be accessible to eligible businesses until 30 June 2020.

The lifting of the threshold and extending the availability of the concession to many more businesses is most certainly a positive step. However, it does leave businesses in a situation where they will have to deal with three different thresholds in the 2019 income year if they want to actually claim the offset.

The thresholds will apply in the following way in the 2019 income year:

  • assets costing less than $20,000 from 1 July 2018 to 28 January 2019 (for businesses with turnover less than $10 million);
  • assets costing less than $25,000 from 29 January 2019 to 2 April 2019 (7.29pm) (for businesses with turnover less than $10 million); and
  • assets costing less than $30,000 from 2 April 2019 to 30 June 2019 (7.30pm) (for businesses with turnover less than $50 million).

It is important to note that the instant asset write-off threshold now includes businesses with a turnover from $10 million to less than $50 million.

Tip! Such a simple concession so favourable to small business is unnecessarily complicated for the 2019 income year. If you don’t get the timing or the amount right, you could miss out. You should ask your tax adviser to make sure you don’t miss out.

 

For more information, and to view the Treasury Laws Amendment (Accelerated Depreciation For Small Business Entities) Act 2017, visit this ATO link – https://www.ato.gov.au/

See next post for the article on Increasing access to company losses >

Comments are closed.

Post Navigation

DISCLAIMER
Thompsons Australia Newsletters and articles are distributed by professional tax practitioners to provide information of general interest to our clients. The content of this newsletter does not constitute specific advice. Readers are encouraged to consult their tax adviser for advice on specific matters.