Palm Beach Accountants and Tax Agents

Palm Beach sits towards the southern end of the Gold Coast, a short run up the highway from the New South Wales border, and plenty of its businesses have a job site, a second venue or staff on the other side of it. We work with businesses throughout Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Tweed and the Northern Rivers, so a client on both sides of the line is routine.

Most of the tax does not change at the border. Income tax, GST and your BAS are federal, so they work the same either side. Payroll tax is the exception, because it is a state tax. Queensland's payroll tax threshold is $1.3 million, but it is measured on annual Australian taxable wages, not Queensland wages alone, and an employer that also pays interstate wages works out its Queensland deduction from its Queensland share of that Australian total. Wages paid to staff in Tweed Heads therefore use up part of the Queensland threshold, while falling under New South Wales' own payroll tax rules.

A business that looks comfortably under the threshold in Queensland can still have a liability, and registration can be required before any tax is payable. Which entity employs the cross-border staff, and how it is grouped with the rest of the business, is worth settling before the second site opens.

On Census day in 2021, 15.1% of employed Palm Beach residents worked from home, against 14.1% across Queensland, according to the ABS 2021 Census QuickStats.

If an area of your home is set aside and used exclusively as a place of business, you can generally claim a share of occupancy expenses such as mortgage interest, rates and insurance. That deduction has a cost the ATO is explicit about. Under its guidance on home-based business and CGT, the main residence exemption then does not cover the part of the gain referable to the business area, generally worked out on the percentage of floor area. As a rough guide, a business area of 10% of the floor area could leave up to 10% of the gain on sale taxable. The actual figure depends on your ownership share and how long the area was used for business.

Two details catch people. The reduction follows your entitlement to claim, not what you actually claimed, so it applies even if there was never a mortgage. And the small business CGT concessions will rarely rescue it, because the active asset test is applied to the whole property, and a home whose main use is private will seldom pass. A study or desk that is also used privately is different: no occupancy claim, and no reduction to the exemption.

Whether a dedicated space is worth claiming depends on how long you expect to stay and what the property is likely to gain, which makes it a decision to model before the first claim, along with the question of when the business should move out of the home altogether.

The same Census shows more managers among Palm Beach's employed residents than the Queensland average (14.3% against 12.5%), more technicians and trades workers (14.6% against 13.7%), more professionals (25.2% against 21.4%) and more people working in cafes and restaurants (3.3% against 2.3%). For an accountant that means three kinds of client most of all: trades and small builders with uneven project cash flow, hospitality operators on tight margins with wage-heavy costs, and consultants running the business from home.

Everything a Palm Beach business needs from its accountant, from the first ABN to the eventual sale, sits under one roof:

• Small business accountants: year-round accounting and advice for owner-operators, trades and venues
• Business tax returns: returns for sole traders, partnerships, trusts and companies, lodged on the tax agent program dates
• BAS lodgements: GST and PAYG prepared and lodged on time, the same whichever side of the border you trade
• Bookkeeping: records kept current through the year, so the BAS and the return are not a scramble
• Cloud accounting: your file on Xero or MYOB, open to both of us at once
• Business structuring: which entity trades, which employs and which holds the assets
• Start-up services: setting a new business up properly from day one, including one starting at home
• Virtual CFO: senior financial input for a growing business without a full-time hire
• Cash flow forecasts: planning for uneven project payments and seasonal trade
• Corporate accountants: groups with several entities, boards or more complex reporting
• Fringe benefits tax: work vehicles, staff meals and entertainment
• Capital gains tax: the tax on selling a business, premises or a home that has carried a business
• Asset protection: keeping what you own clear of the risks the business takes on
• Self-managed super funds: SMSF set-up and compliance for business owners
• QBCC accountants: licence financial reporting for builders and trade contractors
• Commercial properties: premises owned through a company, trust or super fund

Where personal financial product advice is needed, we work alongside licensed financial advisers. Crest does not provide financial product advice itself.

1. A first conversation about the business, how it trades and where you want it to go.

2. Your records and software sorted. We go through the current financials and get Xero or MYOB set up properly, or tidied up if it already runs.

3. The year looked after. BAS, returns and ATO reporting handled as they fall due, with regular reporting and a call when something needs a decision.

To begin we need your entity details, your last returns and financial statements, and access to your accounting file. You nominate Crest as your tax agent for each entity through your own ATO online account, which gives us each entity's lodgment history and anything outstanding. Day to day, your file runs on Xero or MYOB, and documents come to us through the secure upload link on our contact page rather than by email.

Crest does not publish a price list, because two businesses are rarely the same job. A sole trader working from home is a different piece of work from a trust that owns the premises and employs staff in two states. What moves the fee is the number of entities, whether BAS and bookkeeping are in scope, how many sites and states are involved, and the state of the records when they reach us.

We scope the work at the first conversation and confirm the fee in writing before anything starts. Work is quoted per job. Specialist work, such as applying the small business CGT concessions on the sale of a business, is quoted separately from the standard return.

Crest has advised Gold Coast businesses since 1973, independent that whole time. We are a registered tax agent, you can read what our clients say in their own words, and the accountants who handle your file are the people you speak to, year after year.

Tax, BAS, structuring and the sale of a business are handled under one roof, so the person preparing your return already knows about the trust, the premises and the second site. Things get explained in plain English, including the parts you will not like.