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Welcome to the March Newsletter.
Are You Getting the Best Finance Deal?
Funding your business is more than just determining the cheapest interest rate.
Businesses need long term borrowings to support major assets, the acquisition of the business, new equipment for expansion and similar long term objectives. Short term finance to fund trade debtors, stock and overall working capital requirements are also often needed.
The type of finance suitable for each type of funding is quite different. Typically, a flexible facility is needed for short term needs so that as customers pay and stock payments are made, fluctuations can be dealt with on a daily basis. Many of the banks provide overdraft facilities but in recent times using the trade debtors (amounts owning by customers) as security for working capital funding as proven to be a lower risk and cost effective solution.
The type of funding chosen for longer term borrowings can be impacted by the GST position of the business as well as the need to mitigate interest rate risk by using a mixture of fixed rate and variable rate facilities. Of course, there are daily advertisements in the newspapers and a plethora of choices facing business owners. Macquarie Partners has a number of preferred lenders who we recommend based on your individual and/or business requirements, therefore we can help you navigate your way towards a solution which achieves the best tax as well as financial outcome for your business.
If you would like to explore the opportunity to lower the personal exposure you have in relation to your business borrowings, maximise your tax and GST position or simply review your facilities to ensure you are getting the best deal, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us.
Are You Missing Valuable Fuel Tax Credits?
Fuel tax credits, introduced on 1 July 2006, can save business fuel costs by around 18 or 38 cents in every litre. It provides eligible businesses with credits for the fuel tax (excise duty) included in the price of fuel.
Please
click here to view the ATO brochure “So what’s stopping you? Claim fuel tax credits for your business”
If you would like us to assist you with a possible claim please contact us.
Planning to Increase Revenues
Almost half of the owners of SME’s have admitted that they do not have a business plan to increase revenues. One key aspect of any business plan is the marketing plan. Such a plan sets out the strategy that the business will adopt to achieve the forecasted revenue. Assessment of the competition, price points, the impact of price changes on demand, the need value as compared to want value of your product and a range of other factors would all feature in the plan. In many ways, a brainstorming session to determine the answers to these questions drawn initially from your own knowledge can be of great value. We would be pleased to assist you in this process or alternatively give you some indications from our experience of the most appropriate sources of advice in this critical area.
As a first step, documentation of any plan increases the likelihood of success substantially. Please feel free to discuss this with us.
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End of Year Opportunities
As most readers would know, the opportunity to make large undeducted superannuation contributions that can lead to tax free income in retirement closes on 30 June. Recently the press has covered this in some detail and there are a number of reports of parties selling assets to enable them to take advantage of this opportunity. This in itself reflects two things – firstly that there may be some bargains in the real estate market for clients looking to invest in that market as vendors sell properties to create cash first contribution to superannuation before 30 June. If your fund has funds already, it could be the purchaser of such property.
The second message is that the market has clearly realised the value of a tax free income in retirement and therefore perhaps some planning for yourself is in order – we would be happy to discuss this opportunity with you as your individual circumstances will impact the merits of the strategy.
Remember that this is a once only opportunity and therefore action before 31 March is required to ensure that appropriate structuring can occur.
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