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The 101 on Claiming Deductible Expenses for New Zealand Businesses

A tax-deductible expense is an expense that can be deducted from a business's gross income in order to reduce its taxable profit. But it’s not always easy to get your head around. If you are new to business here’s the basics on tax-deductible expenses.Why can businesses deduct expenses from their income?By letting businesses deduct certain expenses from their income, the government is effectively reducing the amount of income that is subject to tax. This helps to make it more financially via...

Key Tax Dates for 2023

If you haven't already, it's time to add some entries to your calendar so you don't miss any vital tax dates.Click here to view IRD’s detailed list or scroll down to find your applicable dates.30th JanuaryGST due for the period ending 31 DecemberAIM installments due if you file GST monthly and have a March balance date7th FebruaryTerminal TaxEnd-of-year income tax and Working for Families bills are due, unless your tax agent has an extension of time to file your income tax returnYour FBT ...

The Cost of Christmas

Christmas parties, end of year work lunches or dinners, gifts for staff and clients – December can certainly be a busy and sometimes expensive month.    Do you know what you can claim and how much? We have put together answers to some of the most frequent questions we get asked.  Staff Christmas Parties If the party is held onsite or offsite the treatment is the same – food, drink, venue hire, and entertainment are only 50% deductible. If you are taking staff out for a Ch...

Are You Payroll Ready for Christmas & New Year?

In a little over 3 weeks the silly season will be here!  If you have not already started planning for your payroll over this period now is a good time to start.    To help you we have put together some of our top tips and some handy guides to help make sure your payroll runs smoothly and your employees get paid correctly and processed on time.  Our top tips:  If you are closing down over the holidays make sure you have given your employees at least 14 days' notice i...

Meet The Team: Tiffany Jackson

What do you do at My Two Cents?Certified Bookkeeper & Xero Training SpecialistHow long have you been with My Two Cents? I have been with MTC for 18 months.What do you love about being an all female team?The support that we all give each other both professionally and personally, oh and the laughs! Our team is very much like extended family.If you weren't doing your current job, what would you like to do?I love my job but if I wasn’t doing that I would maybe travel around our ...

My Two Cents End of Year Update

It's been a busy few months since my last update. The Team have been head down bums up working hard to get as much work in progress completed as possible before we go on a much deserved break at Christmas. We have family catch ups, Xmas parties and plenty of summer camping missions on the cards - can't wait!2022 Filing:If you're still waiting on your financials and tax returns for 2022 - please touch base with Zoe. The bulk of returns are in progress, some we are still waiting for info...

Meet The Team - Natalie Fronczyk

What do you do at My Two Cents? Here at MTC I prepare tax returns, client advisory and some internal trainingHow long have you been with MTC? Since November 2021What do you love about being an all female team? Haha - I do not really think of it like that although I would go as far to say we all speak the same language!If you weren't doing your current job, what would you like to do? Prior to joining MTC I spent 4 years 'doing what I wanted to do' running my own market garden business so am now j...

Meet The Team : Mackyla Worsell

What do you do at My Two Cents? Bookkeeper, GST extraordinaire, haha, Moving into the basic tax side, Funniest Employee and most often the employee of the month.How long have you been with MTC? 4 years this AugustWhat do you love about being an all female team?How much we support each other, and enjoyment we all get seeing one or more of our team members kick butt. Also the understanding we all have for each other and our familiesIf you weren't doing your current job, what would you like to...

Meet The Team : Maris Holt

What do you do at My Two Cents?   Business advisory How long have you been with MTC?  Since start of May 2022 What do you love about being an all female team?  Love the banter, support, & female energy we have in the team.   If you weren't doing your current job, what would you like to do?  Teach surf lessons on a tropical beach somewhere! Have you learned anything interesting through your work at My Two Cents?   Enjoyed learning that clients of MTC l...

Claiming Motor Vehicle Expenses - the need to knows!

Motor vehicle expenses are one of the area’s that IRD have really been focusing on quite a bit over the past few months. It’s also an area that isn’t as clear cut when it comes to the rules for claiming expenses related to business. Generally the rules are:  If your vehicle is purchased and used for business only, all related expenses are 100% claimable for business purposes. If your vehicle is mixed use - part business, part personal then you need to be able to verify the busine...

Meet The Team : Jo Jury

Next up in our Meet The Team series, we have the lovely Jo Jury!What do you do at My Two Cents? I love helping our clients with their day to day bookkeeping and I have a keen focus on improving cashflow through using good debtor management processes and software. How long have you been with MTC?  I started with MTC in February 2020. What do you love about being an all female team? Women understand women!  We have a great team who work well together, understand we all have f...

Meet The Team : Charlotte Hill

What do you do at My Two Cents? Administrator, looking after all the behind the scenes work.  How long have you been with MTC?  6 months (wow, that's gone quick!) What do you love about being an all female team?The laughs..... but more than just that - such a supportive team, I am lucky to be working with a team of amazing ladies who are incredibly clever at what they do. If you weren't doing your current job, what would you like to do?I'd be a Travel Agent again (which I use...

Meet The (ever-expanding) Team: Our Fearless Leader Haley Reyners

The team at My Two Cents has expanded; We are now a crew of 11!  It's also very exciting that the entire team are all women, which is fantastic to see in a male dominated field.  We thought this would be a great time to include some fun -get to know the team- interviews, and of course, what is any team without their leader! So with that, if you have not already met the vivacious Haley Reyners, she is the great mind My Two Cents sprang from. ...

Excise Tax Refunds - could you be due a refund?

With rising fuel costs and financial stresses placed on businesses due to economic uncertainties, we want to make sure that clients are clawing back on costs in any way possible. A lot of you have off-road vehicles, plant or equipment that you fill with petrol. Some of you may not know, but the excise tax paid at the pump can be claimed back!  NZ Petrol refunds is a registered excise tax agency that works directly with businesses to process claims. We would encourage you to get in touch wit...

Do you need help managing your debtors?

Does this scenario sound familiar? We complete a job for a customer or client, invoice it out with agreed payment terms, payment due date rolls around but no payment is received. We send an email or a text to remind the customer - maybe they forgot? It happens. A couple of days later - still no payment. As time goes on, it starts becoming awkward asking for the money we are rightfully owed - what happens now? Unfortunately this scenario is all to common for small businesses, and can result in a ...

Business support under the COVID Protection Framework

Issued from IRD, November 2021: The Minister of Finance has announced a number of changes to the financial support for businesses once New Zealand moves into the COVID Protection Framework at 11.59pm on December 2nd. The changes are as follows: There will be a one-off Transition Payment to acknowledge the restrictions businesses have faced due to the higher Alert Levels in in Auckland, Waikato and Northland. This payment operates in the same way as the Resurgence Support Payments, with the same ...

MTC plans under the new Covid-19 Protection Framework

From 3rd December 2021, the new Covid-19 Protection Framework will be in place.  As we are based in Northland, we will start under the Red Light settings. This limits who we can have in the office and how client meetings will look going forward. We hope that under Orange and Green, we can reassess the measures we have chosen, but at this stage we will have to go forward as detailed below. The decision we have made is to protect our staff, and families. As most of our clients know, our ...

Rental Tax Changes

With the Government's latest legislation changes to remove various tax deductions and previously introducing ring-fencing on rental losses - residential rental properties aren't the great investment that they once were. Property is still a great investment, in that you will nearly always make gains on the sale of the property. Actually being a landlord though, has very little attraction or benefit anymore. The Government previously released draft legislation around the removal of tax deductions ...

New COVID-19 Framework and Business Support

The Government’s announcement on the next stage in the COVID-19 response plan introduces a new framework of measures that will commence when 90% of eligible New Zealanders are fully vaccinated. The new framework has three levels: Red, Orange and Green. Each has different levels of restrictions. At all levels businesses will be able to operate, in some form, for vaccinated people. The advice states, If a business, organisation or service does not wish to request proof of vaccine, they will...

Update and Check in.....

It's been some time since we last wrote an update or did a post. We have been very, very busy working through wage subsidies, RSP payments, tax returns, GST returns, AIM returns, as well as working from home and trying to educate and entertain children. Most of NZ is in the same boat being at L3 and it makes being in business really tough. We are a small family business as well, so we are not immune from all these things. Please be patient with the team and be kind. We share your frustrations an...

Improve your cashflow with great debtor management processes

Good cashflow is the lifeblood of business.  Without it the day to day and long term growth of your business will be impacted. In an ideal world every business would receive 100% payment up front before their customers take possession of the goods or the services you provide.  But the reality is that very few businesses work on that model.  So for those who offer credit terms to their customers Debtor Management is a crucial component of good business management.  You have so...

ICNZB Bookkeeper and Bookkeeping Business of the Year 2021

Wow! I'll think I'll be on cloud nine for the next few weeks. What an amazing end to the annual ICNZB conference - Haley and the My Two Cents Team have taken out both of the top awards for the ICNZB Annual Awards Ceremony - Bookkeeper of the Year and Bookkeeping Business of the Year 2021. Every year bookkeepers from all over NZ flock to the annual ICNZB conference for two days of networking, learning, and meeting with industry specialists from all over - and to have fun of course! This year the ...

Building your most important asset – your team

When you’re running a small business, you’re only as good as the team around you. Hiring the right people is a start, but how do you turn your employees into a well-oiled dream team? Here are five tips to get you started: Get to know them - Different backgrounds and personalities typically come with different strengths. By really getting to know your employees and what makes them tick, you can harness their strengths in a way that complements the overall team.Involve them early and ofte...

The 39% tax rate - Your questions answered

Individuals earning over $180,000 a year will now pay a 39% tax rate, which came into effect on 1 April 2021. If this includes you, are you aware of how your tax obligations change when it comes to shares, property, FBT, superannuation tax, or trusts?The 39% tax rate and trustsFrom now on, you’ll need to disclose a lot more information to Inland Revenue in your annual trust tax returns. The additional information will provide the Government with information on how trusts are being used, partic...

What is depreciation? And why is it important?

Something we see time and time again when clients have done their own tax returns, or engaged somebody who isn't quite up to the job, is a lack of claiming depreciation. Almost all businesses will have assets, and if you don't claim depreciation against these assets you may be paying more tax than you need to. Depreciation is what happens when business assets lose value over time. It’s an all to often forgotten cost of doing business – but it shouldn’t be. Here’s why depreciation is so i...