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    Taking Xero to Stewart Island

    • By Julie Findlay
    • •
    • 24 Jul, 2016

    The team visit beautiful Stewart Island

    Jane and Julie recently visited picturesque Stewart Island to offer free Xero consultations to the locals.  We thoroughly enjoyed the warm and friendly atmosphere and it was good to meet existing and potential clients and discuss how Xero could benefit their business.  A beautiful winter's day saw us in short sleeves exploring the lovely tracks, teamed with the kids Geo-Caching and dare I say it Pokemon Hunting - both activities alive and thriving on the Island.
    Could get used to this view - our set up at the iconic South Seas Hotel

    GST Return filing just got easier with Xero

    By Julie Findlay • 28 Jul, 2016

    We’re excited to announce that you can now file your GST returns in Xero and send them straight through to Inland Revenue electronically. Xero has  had 1,400 Xero businesses in New Zealand helping them over the last few months. They found it awesome and we think you will too.

    “Xero makes it easy to get my books done, and takes out the hassle of paperwork – like filing taxes with Inland Revenue.  Xero has always calculated my GST but I used to enter that into a separate system to file my return. Now I do it in Xero and it’s filed in seconds, without any chance of human error – it’s accurate and easy to use. It’s one less thing I need to remember to do.”
    – Frank Hsu of Frank’s Coffee and Eats

    This service is incorporated into the current GST filing process in Xero. If you file provisional tax, make sure you’ve selected your provisional tax method , and you’re all set. When you click ‘File Now’ you’ll be prompted for your myIR login. It’s that easy – no double entry of your IR number or other information, Xero populates it all for you

    Taking Xero to Stewart Island

    By Julie Findlay • 24 Jul, 2016
    Jane and Julie recently visited picturesque Stewart Island to offer free Xero consultations to the locals.  We thoroughly enjoyed the warm and friendly atmosphere and it was good to meet existing and potential clients and discuss how Xero could benefit their business.  A beautiful winter's day saw us in short sleeves exploring the lovely tracks, teamed with the kids Geo-Caching and dare I say it Pokemon Hunting - both activities alive and thriving on the Island.

    Specialist Tax Advice When 'YOU' Need It!

    By Julie Findlay • 21 Jun, 2016

    At Balanced Accountancy, we engage the specialist service of one of New Zealand’s most reputable accounting firms for taxation advice.   Polson Higgs offer practical advice to maximise savings and minimise tax.

    Polson Higgs has a long-standing relationship with our firm, providing specialist taxation advice when required. This enables us to assist those clients who require this service, without a large overhead being built into our fees. It is a user-pays service. 

    Julie previously worked for Polson Higgs (formerly Price Waterhouse) in Dunedin and has maintained connections with key members of the Polson Higgs team.

    Find out more about Polson Higgs by visiting:

    www.ph.co.nz


    Beware, New IRD Scam doing the rounds...

    By Julie Findlay • 16 Jun, 2016
    Hundreds of people around the country are getting calls about "unpaid taxes" from scammers saying they are from Inland Revenue.
    IRD customer services group manager Eleanor Young said since Tuesday more than 500 people had reported calls telling them they were being investigated for historic tax fraud or evasion, and threatening legal action.

    Mike Shaw of New Plymouth received a suspicious answer-phone message left by a Kenneth Matthews who had an accent that sounded English or American, he said.
     
    The IRD have said they have received over 500 calls from people telling them they were being "investigated".

    "This guy said I needed to call IRD urgently. The phrasing he used was a bit off - he said either myself or my weekend lawyer needed to call them immediately. I didn't bother ringing them back."

    A couple of hours later, he got another call from a different man.

    Mike Shaw was not fooled when someone claiming to be from IRD called him.

    "He told me he needed my details because the IRD was about to sue me. I laughed at this and told him that I knew his call was, to put it bluntly, a "load of bulls...". He was upset at this and said I wouldn't think so when the police called at my home because the IRD was suing me. When I made it clear I did not believe him, he hung up."

    He was keen to warn people about the scammers.

    "They are looking for the vulnerable and the naive. The trouble is that they'll get hold of someone who is not IT literate and aware of these things and they will get caught up in it. You hear of people losing thousands of dollars to scam artists, it makes me furious actually," he said.

    Young said Inland Revenue would never ask for credit card details or bank account numbers over the phone in order to process a monetary payment.

    "Customers should always be totally satisfied that they are talking to a genuine Inland Revenue staff member before handing over any personal details. These callers are quite clever and are particularly aggressive, so people need to be wary of being caught out," she said.

    "We recommend that if anyone receives a call of this nature they hang up and if they have any concerns to email phishing@ird.govt.nz."

    New Plymouth IT consultant Mike Hobin said it was fairly simple to find people's names, phone numbers, email addresses and other information.

    "You can search for a name on the internet and from there you can search for a phone number and from there on social media and sometimes an email address. The only way to guard against this sort of thing is to stay off social media completely."

    He said scammers targeted older people.

    "I've cleaned up four or five PCs in the past year for elderly people who have made the mistake of letting these people in and I've had to go and fix their PCs.

    "When it comes to calls like this IRD scam, if you're not sure, call them back, but not on the number they have given you, look up the number for that department in the phone book."

    Renting Out Your Holiday Home?

    By Julie Findlay • 19 Apr, 2016

    It is becoming very popular for many of you who have holiday homes, to rent these out to get a bit of extra income.

    This is a great wee income earner when you are not using it.

    We do get asked frequently “do I have to declare this income?” “can I claim any expenses against this income?”

    The answer to both, generally, is YES!

    Inland Revenue introduced new rules for the March 2014 and future years for tax on holiday home income.

    This link details their policy on this - http://www.ird.govt.nz/business-income-tax/expenses/holiday-homes/

    In summary, you need to return any rental income (unless it is under $4,000). Other exemptions do apply such as renting to family members or renting out at less than 80% of market rates.

    If you are in a position where you need to declare the income, the good news is you can claim some expenses against the income. As a guide:

    -        Claim 100% of expenses directly relating to renting out (eg advertising)

    -        Claim a percentage of the general costs of the property (rates, insurance, interest etc) – this percentage is based on a formula set down by IRD.

    If you think this is relevant to your situation, have a read over the IRD guidelines and give us a call to discuss further.  As always this article is of a general nature, and should not take the place of specific advice relevant to your individual situation.

     

     

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    2016 Budget Proposals to Simplify Tax

    By Julie Findlay • 17 Apr, 2016

    The Prime Minister announced a business tax package last week, which includes proposals to simplify business tax.

    For details about the package see:

    http://taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2016-ip-mts-better-business-tax-summary-proposals.p...

    -   questions and answers   about the package

    Or call one of our team to discuss.

    Snow Devastation

    By Julie Findlay • 02 Mar, 2016
    On the morning of 19 September 2010, while the rest of Invercargill was still absorbing the collapse of Stadium Southland, we awoke early the following day to discover that our original building in Yarrow Street had too, succumbed to the heavy snow.

    It was a difficult process to witness how much devastation that a snow dump could cause. The roof of the building had completely caved in, and in places, damaged thousands of dollars’ worth of stock.

    When we think about it, we were lucky, firstly that no-one was hurt in the disaster. We were fortunate to be able to temporarily relocate to a smaller shop in Leven Street until our rebuild was complete.

    We were also lucky too, that Julie from Balanced Accountancy was on board to assist. We all quickly became Insurance Loss Experts. We would get together and look at the figures from all angles. Initially we paid consultants who specialised in this type of work (at Julie’s recommendation) to advise us on the process and do some initial work for us. However, it became apparent to us that Julie was more than capable of taking this on.

    Julie worked closely with our Insurance assessors. When a business literally crashes in, there is a lot of debate/arguments to be had in establishing the value of the loss, this can be quite a subjective process depending on what side of the insurance equation you are on. Julie was able to maximise our insurance claim and have several healthy debates with the assessors, backing her arguments with facts and figures. As we still joke with Julie, Julie speaks ‘accounting-ese’ – our insurance assessor spoke in this language also. Julie was able to deal with the assessors in their unique language and then relay the information to us in plain English. This helped us immensely.

    Within 9 months we were back in our original space. The work did continue for Julie - as part of the claim also covered the time back in the new premises until we got completely back on our feet. We are grateful that Julie was able to dedicate a lot of time to preparing our loss claim. She slotted into the business and worked with us on all aspects of the accounts to get the best result for us.

    Julie has been our accountant since the inception of the company. She has been with us when we moved from Spey Street, to our new building in Yarrow Street and has seen our business grow, and she continues to provide regular support to our business.

    Quite simply, we don’t believe we would be here if it wasn’t for Julie.

    DEAN & SHELLEY TODD, WRENS



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