GST Charges introduced on services provided after 1/3/2020
A broadcast email was dispatched on Tuesday 11 Feb 2020 to advise customers that; as of 1 March 2020 Goods and Services Tax of 10% will be charged on all services delivered by Noosa Prestige.
It is most regrettable, but we have held off imposing price increases for as long as possible. The GST however is inescapable for any business that exceeds the Tax Office’s low annual sales threshold.
Most people understand the need for compliance and accept the charge for GST. Well its imposed on most goods and services we buy, however those who are not in business or dont have GST registration, are the ones who are affected the most since they have no way of claiming the charge for GST back from the Tax Office.
Unfortunately, this is just one of the many costs imposed upon businesses in Australia. While speaking with an accountant recently, I was inform the The Australian Government is planning to impose more rigorous tax compliance via an online system that reports an ABN holder’s invoices direct to the ATO. Since income is already reported via PAYG installment system, the ATO is planning to relieve businesses of their need for end of year tax compliance and perform this automatically at the ATO.
While this may be sold off as a “convenience” to business owners, it might be a case of “putting the fox in charge of the hen house”! The Question will be; Do you trust your Government? And if the Tax Office make a mistake (eg: Robodebt fiasco) what are the chances of getting your money back before you go broke, and I doubt there will be any legal recourse for small businesses against the ATO under these circumstances.
Not surprisingly, the ATO have introduced STANDARD BUSINESS REPORTING. This is a clear example of where we are headed. The ATO describe this new rule as follows:
Standard Business Reporting (SBR) is a standard approach to online or digital record-keeping to simplify business reporting obligations. Digital service providers build SBR rules into business software to make it ‘SBR-enabled’. You can prepare and lodge reports to us directly from your SBR-enabled business software.
Is It Time to Move onto Other Things?
So much has changed since 2020 including how businesses operate and what they have to comply with. But its not just businesses that are experiencing change, its property owners also. As much of the work carried out be Noosa Prestige Cleaning Services is for property owners, managers and tenants, the changes are measurable.
In Noosa we have witnessed the current local Council overstep their administrative role and become authoritarian by enforcing unlawful lock-downs during 2020-21. This had zero effect on Noosa Prestige, but it devastated landlords of residential and commercial properties, and forced business closures from which many businesses never recovered.
Then we had the deceptive campaign by local councils Australia wide, claiming short term rentals were causing critical shortages in available long term rentals, with the Mayor going to the local paper to plead with property owners to dump their holiday letting interests and rent to long term tenants. Council then underhandedly enforced this by introducing a “trial period” of registration and compliance for all short term rentals (rental term of less than 3months) which would see property owners who complied, get slugged with a DOUBLING of rate levies and registration fees. The entire scheme was a sham to capitalise on the profits from a successful rental market catering to tourism demand by private property owners.
The put in place a local law (by their own authority) to penalise every holiday unit outside Hastings Street and select pockets around Noosa Heads. That meant Gympie Terrace holiday apartments were all subjected to massive rate increases.