Essential Tax Planning Tips for 2025

It is that time of year again. Please reach out to your adviser to have your tax position reviewed. One of the big changes this year is the reduction in the instant asset write off threshold.

Instant Asset Write-Off

Until 30 June 2025 – assets costing less than $20,000 can be immediately deducted.

Key points;

1. Asset must be installed ready for use by 30/6/2025,
2. Eligible businesses are those with less than $10 million of turnover,
3. New & second-hand assets are eligible.

The threshold beyond 30 June 2025 is uncertain at this stage.

ATO’s Tougher Stance on Debts

Payments to the ATO can take up to 4 days to process.  Historically, the ATO has not applied interest on payments that clear within a few days of the due date.  That is no longer the case.  They will apply interest on ALL debts that have not had payments clear by the due date. 

What does this mean for you?

1. You need to be paying debts at least 4 days before due date,
2. This may mean you need to be better organised with the preparation of your Income Tax Return or Business Activity Statement,
3. Interest remissions are difficult to obtain – we are seeing a significant drop in the success of interest remission requests,
4. Effective from 1 July 2025 – interest on ATO debt will no longer be tax deductible.

If you have questions about these recent changes, please reach out to the team so we can discuss.

Penalties and loss of tax deduction for late Super Guarantee Payments

The ATO have very strict rules around the payment of Super Guarantee. They require that payment must be received by your employee’s superfund by the due date. Merely making the payment by the due date is not sufficient. Our recommendation is to process your superannuation payment by the 15^th of the month, to allow the clearing house plenty of time to process the payment and deposit it into your employee’s superfund. 

If Super Guarantee is paid late:

1. The super payment cannot be claimed as a tax deduction,

You are required to lodge a Super Guarantee Charge statement with the ATO and pay interest and administration fees. Failure to do so could leave you exposed to penalties and audit in the future. We are able to assist with this statement if required.