Business & Legal Advice

Your Financial Planner Can Be Beneficial To Your Health

July 24, 2018 Free Web Shop Business & Legal Advice

Ever heard of the phrase ‘Prevention Is Better Than The Cure’? It can apply to many things in business issues but none more so than your health. If you have money worries they can negatively affect your health, so you’ll most likely visit your doctor for treatment. Whilst they can prescribe all sorts of pills and potions to treat the symptoms, they can’t take away your financial woes. This is where a financial planner such as andep.com.au comes to the rescue, as they not only ‘cure’ many of your financial woes, they can prevent any further deterioration.

The negative impact on health caused by money worries is well documented. There are several physical, and psychological ailments that worrying about your finances can produce. Here are four of the most common.

Chronic Stress: Stress can be the catalyst to a whole catalogue of illnesses, and in recent years its impact on health has become more and more obvious. Stress can lead to eating disorders, heart conditions, respiratory conditions, upset digestive system and low immunity. Nothing will reduce your stress more than allowing a financial planner to assess your finances and create a sensible workable plan to get everything manageable for you.

Depression: Not being able to see any way out of the financial hole you are in can lead to serious depression. This can be magnified when you have children, for whom you feel unable to provide for properly. At its extreme, depression can bring suicidal thoughts so seeking help is essential. Instead of being depressed about money worries, a financial planner can give you hope that there is a way out the situation you are in.

Fatigue: Trying to cope with money worries can be draining, both physically and mentally. In addition, one of the ways you might have tried to improve matters could have been to take on a second job or work more hours. There is nothing wrong in this as such, but if they mean a significant lack of rest or sleep, added to worrying about money, your health can deteriorate. With the help of a financial planner to look at ways of reducing your outgoings so that the need to work so many hours is removed.

Workplace Harassment – Fundamentals and Beyond

June 17, 2018 Free Web Shop Business & Legal Advice

The past year has seen an explosion of harassment claims in the employment marketplace. No business sector has been left untouched: Hollywood, Las Vegas, Professional Sports, the Education Sector as well as well-established businesses have all seen high-profile, highly toxic revelations about misconduct in the workplace. Commercial lawyers will tell you this is dangerous territory for a company, and building friendly connections between your employees and other staff through activities like those provided by Team Building Perth, can help build staff morale and stop the sexualisation of staff members by building healthy workplace relationships.

A few examples in popular culture stand out:

Hollywood: Hollywood, particularly the revelations about Harvey Weinstein has been the focal point for many of the claims. Celebrity newscaster, journalists, movie makers, musicians and even chefs have all seen their share of upsetting revelations. To name just a few: Matt Lauer, Ben Affleck, Dustin Hoffman, Geraldo Rivera, and Steven Segal, among many others.

Las Vegas: The gaming industry has not been immune to its share of harassment claims, Steve Wynn, the CEO of Wynn Resorts and perhaps the most high profile figure in Las Vegas suddenly stepped down as Chairman and CEO after allegations surfaced chronicling a years-long pattern of abuse.

Sports: The University of Arizona fired coach Rich Rodriguez after sexual misconduct allegations.

Automotive: Raj Nair – Ford’s president was ousted for unspecified inappropriate behavior.

Politics: The number of offenders in this category are almost too numerous to mention, but a few names of those accused of misconduct are: Bill Clinton, Senator Al Franken and Judge Roy Moore.

Unfortunately, the phrase sexual harassment has been so co-opted into our modern vocabulary that it sometimes leads to erroneous idea of what “sexual harassment” actually is. To clear things up, let’s go straight to the law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

What Is A Farm Management Deposit And Should I Use One?

May 22, 2018 Free Web Shop Business & Legal Advice

Regarding accounting and bookkeeping for small businesses, one of the hardest things to control is your profits and losses for the year. This is especially true for business owners like farmers or fishermen who can earn highly variable incomes.

Luckily, the Australian government has made a number of allowances for people who own businesses like this to make it easier for them to keep their business taxes in order. One of the more popular things that they have done is introduce something called a farm management deposit.

What is a farm management deposit?

According to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), farm management deposits are designed to help primary producers deal with the effects of having a highly variable income. For example, in drought years, a farmer may make a complete loss, meaning that they don’t have any taxes to pay. However, in a good year, a farmer may make more than enough money, pushing themselves into the top tax bracket. In this case they would pay a lot more tax than would necessarily be fair.

Farm management deposits provide something of a compromise, and help primary producers pay something of a fairer amount of tax. Basically, on very good years, you can make a tax deductible farm management deposit, which will reduce your taxable income. You can then withdraw this deposit on a poorer year and pay tax on it then. Although the benefit of doing this may not seem obvious immediately, you will obviously pay less tax by keeping more of your income in the lower tax brackets.

What are the benefits of using a farm management deposit?

There are a lot of benefits associated with using farm management deposits. Some of these include:

Farm management deposits can help you minimise the amount of tax that you pay. This is obviously a good thing (unless you like paying tax!), especially if you are a primary producer who struggles to make a decent income.
They can help you spread your income evenly across every year. As a primary producer, it can be hard to get through drought years if you don’t have a decent financial buffer to fall back on. Farm management deposits can help you get through these tougher years.

ATO Checklist for a Deceased Estate

May 6, 2017 Free Web Shop Business & Legal Advice

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.

How to Avoid Legal Issues in Business

February 6, 2017 Free Web Shop 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.

How a Healthy Appearance Can Advance Your Career

January 3, 2017 Free Web Shop 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.

Who Should you Use for Conveyancing when Buying a Business

October 12, 2016 Free Web Shop Business & Legal Advice

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

Just How Receiving Stolen Goods Is Illegal

October 11, 2016 Free Web Shop 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:

New Crowdfunding Laws Might Affect Startup Capital Raising in Australia

May 18, 2016 Free Web Shop Business & Legal Advice

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.

What You Should Know About Liability Insurance for Directors and Officers

March 18, 2016 Free Web Shop 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.