Recent News

When considering your Estate planning, you need to consider your circumstances whilst you are still alive. What happens if you lose capacity? Who will help pay the bills and make decisions for you? A Power of Attorney is a legal document appointing someone to act for...

Elder abuse is an increasing problem in our society, often hard to identify and with many ways it can be inflicted on vulnerable older people. It is important to identify the signs of abuse early and understand the available legal rights. Elder abuse occurs where...

The current creepy clown craze now terrifying communities in Australia poses risks, not only for the public at large, but also the offenders, where their actions may lead to criminal charges ranging from assault to more seriously manslaughter or even murder. A person...

The High Court in the recent Gerard Baden-Clay decision restoring the verdict of murder reminds us of the fundamental function of the jury to determine the issues of fact. Given the role of the jury trial in our criminal justice system and as representatives of the...

  Tax time is now in full swing with many of you visiting your accounting offices in hope of a decent bonus from a tax return, but there have been many changes in what we can claim and also how. E-Tax is now dead. Long live E-Tax. Its predecessor, MyGov, has now...

Division 7A is a part of the tax law that is designed to discourage shareholders accessing money from their private companies, other than by way of those private companies paying them dividends. Division 7A does this by treating certain payments and loans made by the...

Often, we talk about assessing client’s capacity and it is widely known that a person must have “capacity” to make or change their Wills. Some people, either because of conditions such as dementia or intellectual disabilities or even illness, do not have capacity to...

In March 2016, the Tax Laws Amendment (Small Business Restructure Roll-over) Act 2016 received royal assent. So, what does this mean? If you are a small business, that is, your turnover is less than two million dollars ($2,000,000.00) annually you may meet the...

For some, it is difficult to understand why an adult of full capacity cannot choose to whom they leave their Estate. We hear often of stories of family disharmony, where there has been a falling out in the family and the relationship is estranged. However, having a...

As we all know that the government has introduced new rules to benefit small businesses, such as the $20,000 instant write off for a business asset. In the 2015-16 financial year, another benefit for certain small businesses has been introduced, which is called ‘small...