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ATO Checklist for a Deceased Estate

Business & Legal Advice
Deceased Estate

When a person dies, their estate must be ‘administered’, which can mean different things for a person who owned a business than for someone who did not.  If the deceased person was a business owner, it is important to seek advice from a lawyer immediately as there are many things to know about and to do, especially when it comes to tax compliance.

If the persons who has died was near and dear to you it may be difficult to focus on the administration of their estate, especially if it includes a business that is operational. If this is the case you may want to appoint a deceased estates lawyer as an executor. This will save you a lot of stress at a time you are least able to bear it.

Otherwise, it is important to know exactly what you should do as the executor of the estate. Here is an ATO checklist to help you.

  • Find out if the deceased had a Will and who they appointed as executor. You may already know this if it is yourself. If not, the public trustee in your state may be asked to act on behalf of the deceased.
  • If you have been appointed executor, you may need to establish your ID and authority in order to deal with the deceased’s tax affairs.

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How to Avoid Legal Issues in Business

Business & Legal Advice

Once you start running a business, whether it be a local plumber or painter, you are likely to find a whole host of legal issues that must be solved quickly to avoid fines, litigation and loss of reputation, amongst other things. The best way to do this is to have good lawyers on hand so you can get the advice you need quickly. Keeping the same business solicitors is best because they will be familiar with your business and know exactly what is likely to be a problem and how to avoid it.

It is far better for your business and your peace of mind to avoid a problem than have to solve it. Working to solve a problem will take a lot of time and effort away from running the business, even though this must be done. Avoiding the problem in the first place will cost a lot less, even when you take into account paying your legal advisor.

Don’t let problems escalate

Many problems tend to escalate, especially if you don’t get onto them straight away. The end result can be litigation or having to appear in court for another reason; both scenarios are something to be avoided at all costs. Even a small business can suffer from legal problems, especially if no legal aid was sought in the beginning. It is common sense in business to surround yourself with professionals who can guide you through what appears to be a maze of legalities.

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5 Concepts to Help Keep Your Brand Relevant

Web Marketing
Brand Relevance

Most business owners give some thought to branding their company; however, if you are only just going online with your business, some of what you know about branding may be old hat. It is important to keep up with the times, which is why you are now getting an online presence. But what you did for your offline company may not work for an online one.

Here are 5 concepts to help you keep up to date with branding.

  • Yours is not the only business in the market and those that have gone before you – and are still there – have done the work of defining the brand for your industry. What you need to do is see it is delivered on a consistent basis on your website. To do this, you need a brand strategy that defines what you stand for, including what you promise and your personality.
  • People are not as trusting as they used to be. Rather than take note of advertising from a company, they prefer to ask family and friends or even total strangers what they think. Why? Because these people don’t stand to gain anything by promoting a company they like, so their opinion is real and authentic.
  • You need to find out what is really working with your marketing strategies and the only way to do that online is to track everything. It is only by examining the results carefully that your marketing team can say for sure what is working and what is not working. They then have to double their efforts on the former and quit the latter to ensure a good ROI.

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How a Healthy Appearance Can Advance Your Career

Business & Legal Advice

It’s a well-known fact that psychologically speaking, people feel better when they are surrounded by a beautiful setting and in business, this includes the appearance of employees. Management in business usually understands this, which is why employees are chosen partly by their looks, especially for those positions that have to do with the public. Employees that want to make the most of their business opportunities often choose a Botox to give them a youthful and healthy appearance.

A Botox treatment can certainly give you a more youthful and healthier look by removing facial wrinkles. Wrinkles between the eyebrows and across the forehead not only make you look older than you are, they can make you look harassed and bad-tempered. This is not the image you want to project in the office.

Rather, you want to look stress-free and in control, to project the image of a person at ease in their job, someone who copes well with whatever they have to handle. In this way, you will give the impression of being in control while ensuring that there is no bad-tempered look on your face, which can easily turn people away from dealing with you.

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3 Steps to an eCommerce Website

Web Design
eCommerce-Website

Having a successful e-commerce website from which to sell goods globally is the dream of many people. It would allow them to work from home or have a second job that could be done from home while they still keep their day job. Some people have become so successful that they were able to give up their day job altogether.

If you dream about doing that, it’s a good idea to put some thought and research into it first, so here are 3 steps to help you.

    • Choose the product. It may take some time to work out what is best for you. It needs to be something you are interested in or even passionate about, that is also a popular product in the market. There is no point in trying to sell stuff that no one wants. Choose a product by (a) the selling price – it needs to be enough to give you a good return over your investment (ROI). So make sure your cut on the sale is enough to make you a nice profit. (b) Make sure the product is not available in locally. If people can’t get it locally they have to go online to shop. (c) Make sure the product is not too big and heavy, or shipping costs will be very expensive. It should not be breakable either so less packing will be needed.

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Who Should you Use for Conveyancing when Buying a Business

Business & Legal Advice
buying-a-business

A commercial lawyer along with a digital agency is the best combination to provide professional legal advice for any conveyancing work when purchasing a business.  Conveyancing is the transfer of a land title from the seller to the buyer and is the last chore in a long list of things to be done when purchasing real estate. Not everyone will need to purchase the land and buildings when buying a business because these are often leased, and you just take over the lease in order to continue running the business.

However, in some cases it is necessary to also buy the real estate which consists of land and buildings, but is generally referred to as property.  Sometimes you simply purchase the property with no business and you then have to have a suitable building erected and apply to startup your own business there. Since these proceedings can take many months, most people prefer the property lease option.

If you do go the route of purchasing property, it can be dealt with by a conveyancer, but they are not legally allowed to give financial advice or do legal work that is not considered to be part of the property transfer. What can they do?

  • Prepare agreements to do with the conveyancing
  • Complete transfers
  • Draw up leases
  • Deal with mortgages

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Just How Receiving Stolen Goods Is Illegal

Business & Legal Advice

Have you ever been offered the sale of goods that were just “found” by the seller? Maybe when you asked about the origins of the goods, or how the person came into possession of them, you were answered with a sly smile and told they “fell off the back of a truck”. While it might seem like a stroke of luck to be there at the right time in order to take advantage of these “bargain” items—it’s more likely that the law is being broken. Many people will be surprised to learn that receiving these types of goods is in fact illegal.

It seems like a harmless thing to buy some cheap goods that mysteriously turn up. The lawyers opine that after all, you don’t know where they came from, so how can you be culpable if there was any crime committed? There are many different aspects to this offence, so there’s no need to become suspicious of every single item that you see for private sale.

Technically, it is an offence to receive stolen property if you are aware that they were actually stolen. There is absolutely no question about what this is, and no grey area to think about. If you’d like to get technical and see the actual offence guidelines, taken from the Criminal Code 1899 of Queensland, here they are:

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New Crowdfunding Laws Might Affect Startup Capital Raising in Australia

Business & Legal Advice
crowd funding

Legislation changes have been passed to allow public companies, which are unlisted, to use crowdfunding to raise money from small time investors (otherwise known as “mum and dad” investors). This legislation has been successfully passed in the lower house of parliament.

There was a lot of criticism of this bill from the opposing parties. The bill will allow companies to raise as much as $5 million, even if they are not listed, and have a combination of assets and turnover that is less than $5 million already. This can be done once per year, using the highly popular method of crowdfunding.

Those who are wondering what exactly crowdfunding is, might need to consult experienced commercial lawyers or do some research on the subject. But a basic explanation is, crowdfunding allows people and companies to ask for money from potential customers and investors, for products, services, and business ventures that have not actually come into fruition yet. This type of thing is commonplace in countries like the USA, so many people see no issue with bringing that kind of practice to small businesses in Australia. After all, small companies are typically in need of the most help from legislation. However, there are some deeper issues to look at.

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What You Should Know About Liability Insurance for Directors and Officers

Business & Legal Advice

Liability insurance for directors and officers has typically been viewed as a routine thing, in the past. It’s just one of tasks things that needs to be done, and many people give it little thought. However, it is important to understand what the implications of this “box ticking” activity really are.

Here are some of the most important aspects of these insurance policies, as well as the potential problems that might be encountered. These pitfalls should be carefully noted or get some expert advice from lawyers, to avoid falling to them.

Notification Timing

Different policies will typically vary, regarding what will trigger a notification. That means directors and officers will not always be notified by the same events, depending on their company and the policy it holds. If an insurer is notified, it is important to be aware that proceeding events might not actually be covered. This will, of course, run the risk of exposing directors and officers to potential claims, even though they believed they were covered.

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How AdWords Can Help Startups

Web Marketing

Starting a business is never easy, and quite honestly, one could use all the help they can get. With few options and a limited budget, using features like Google AdWords is among the most effective ways to get the kick start that we want. In fact if AdWords are utilized skillfully and strategic search campaigns are conducted then a startup can soon grab investor’s attentions, give a heads-up to the startup if they are heading in the wrong direction and help them stay up-to-date with the latest features and ideas and more importantly help them get the attention they need in order to begin on the right note.

Listed below are some of the ways in which AdWords can help a startup:

1.     Gmail Ads:

Gmail Ads are one of the most interesting and helpful tools for startups to get the instant attention of their audiences and gain maximum exposure. Interesting thing about businesses is that we are only aiming to snatch out competitors customers. For instance everyone use mobiles, but some use Apple’s while others use Samsung’s. Now with all the marketing and advertisement Samsung is just trying to grab the customers of other mobile manufacturing companies and not looking to find a new target audience.

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