Hello and welcome to our first newsletter for 2016. It's suddenly starting to feel like autumn with a slight chill in the air in the mornings. With Easter coming up, we're sure everyone is looking forward to an extra-long weekend to be able to get through all those Easter eggs and hot cross buns!
Some of you may have noticed at the beginning of this month that our phone system was not working properly. We do apologise to everyone who had trouble reaching us, however it was out of our control due to a serious technical issue, which thankfully has now been resolved. We'd like to thank you for your patience during this period.
Important Upcoming Tax Dates
By now, those of our clients who have an extension of time should have received your 2015 terminal tax notices. This tax is due on the 7th of April
.Don't forget that if you are sending a cheque, it must be received by the 7th so get it in the post in plenty of time!
We'll also be emailing out the tax notices for the 2016 final provisional tax instalment shortly (payment due on the 7th of May
). Please make sure you look out for these in your inbox.
If paying either of these taxes by the due date is not possible, please don't stress! Get in touch with us as soon as you can so we can either set up a payment arrangement with Inland Revenue or buy your tax from Tax Management New Zealand.
For those of you who are GST registered: if you file your GST either two monthly or six monthly and your returns are aligned with a 31 st
of March balance date, your due date for filing and payment will be the 7th of May
. Note that this is our busiest time of the year so please get your information to us as soon as you can to ensure we can meet the deadline.
Additional Requirements for 31st March
- Record your debtors (people who owe you money) as at 31 March 2016.
- Record your creditors (people you owe money to) as at 31 March 2016.
- Carry out a stock take, if you carry and sell stock. Stock needs to be valued at the lesser of cost or market value so take this opportunity to review the appropriate valuation for the goods you are holding. You should make a note of all the stock items and the cost of each (GST exclusive). The total is counted as your closing stock. The stocktake is important too for performance monitoring and income tax purposes. An inaccurate stocktake will result in an incorrect cost of sales figure, which impacts on the perceived value of your business and on the tax you pay. So the closer it is done to balance date, the better!
Importation of Goods
People who are importing goods MUST keep all invoices from freight forwarding companies. These invoices provide the only breakdown of the GST, duty and freight on these goods, and without them you may be missing out on significant GST claims. It would be appreciated if you could please send this information to us as soon as you receive it, in case it gets misplaced or overlooked.
School Donations
It's that time of the year again when school fees and donations are being paid. Don't forget you can claim a 33% rebate on these donations (as well as donations to most charities), so please remember to include these in your receipts if paid by the 31 st
March 2016. Note that activity fees and some levies imposed by schools are not claimable so we must have your receipt to ensure we are only claiming the donation part of the payment.
Xero Fees
If you are looking at using Xero, there is an added incentive to join this month, with fees being discounted by 50% for four months if you sign up by 31 st
March.
Audit Insurance
At the end of last year you would have received a letter regarding participation in Audit Shield insurance. We were pleased to see the number of people taking up this offer to protect themselves against the cost of future audits or risk reviews. We also realise that many of you don't think you need audit insurance. However, we have recently been through this experience with one of our "low-risk" clients and, unfortunately, it's proven to be rather an expensive exercise for them. In this instance, the audit appears to have been triggered by a blanket review of contractors to a particular production company and thus completely outside our control. Happily we were able to satisfy Inland Revenue that our client is compliant and thus he is not facing any negative tax consequences. However, the considerable amount of time taken does cost!
For those of you who don't have audit insurance but would like to take this up, please contact us. From the 1 st
March 2016 the premium has now been pro-rated and is calculated at a slightly lesser rate than a full year's coverage.
Other points of interest....
If you are looking for any kind of financial, insurance or mortgage advice, we are able to offer assistance in these areas, or we can certainly put you on to the right people to talk to. Don't just take the word of "the man in the pub"; seek correct advice before you take action, as it is always going to cost you less to set your affairs up correctly than to unwind mistakes later.
Finally, the team at Tyler Price would like to wish you all a very happy and relaxing Easter. As always, we look forward to assisting you with any queries you may have coming up to the end of the financial year, and we are only too happy to be able to help.
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