Powerline - Spring 2019

Well here we are, nearing the end of our 50th year at Power Tynan. It has been very rewarding spending time with our great clients at functions or interviews and recalling the times together. It is interesting to compare how we DID business to how we do business today - hasn't it changed?!

The one thing that hasn't changed is the need to give a personalised service and to know how to relate to people. We as advisers need to understand people's circumstances to offer sound and specific advice for the client. We have more accurate and up to date information than ever before, enabling us to provide more timely advice and, by utilising technology, be more accurate in our predictions. This allows us to plan for all types of scenarios whether it be succession planning, restructuring advice, estate planning, new product scenarios, or just plain costings on products. This along with some "what if" scenarios makes it really worthwhile to spend time brainstorming for any business decision, and then put in place strategies to help you achieve your desired outcomes.

You may wonder why we ask so many questions when we sit down to discuss your affairs.  It is to ensure we fully understand your personal circumstances, as what you may think is nothing could be an avenue for you to improve or protect your personal circumstances.

It is all about understanding your personal and business circumstances to offer a better service to you and to help you achieve your goals.

The drought and the bushfires have been a major drawback on the local economies we physically operate in, and we are all wishing for an end to these extreme conditions. People are hurting on all levels, so please be aware of your neighbours and fellow business owners and ensure they are coping as best as possible. The Government has started offering free or subsidised services so please contact us if you aren't aware of services that may benefit you. 

At Power Tynan, we have an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) in place through Acacia. This is a confidential counselling service to help all employees deal with personal or work related issues in a positive way, to assist in overcoming life’s challenges and return to a better state of emotional well-being.

Given the extremely difficult circumstances many of our clients are facing in relation to the drought and bushfires, we have spoken to Acacia to offer these services to our clients as well.

If you wish to use this service, you can book online via www.acaciaconnection.com or call 1300 364 273, and please quote the code 3871OSR.

We were lucky enough to have Kevin from Wings4Kidz visit our Stanthorpe office to accept the donation of $1,500 from the Power Tynan Charitable Trust.

Wings4Kidz is a not-for-profit organisation providing a free flight service for children in regional communities, who have serious or life threatening illnesses, and are required to travel to major city based hospitals for treatment.

For more information on this wonderful organisation, or to find out how you can help or donate, visit https://wings4kidz.org.au/

Queensland’s Department of Agriculture and Fisheries recently released new requirements in relation to the Queensland Emergency Water Infrastructure Rebate.

While this rebate was initially only for livestock producers (where your dam must be primarily used for livestock), it has now been extended to include horticulture tree crops.

The Permanent Horticulture Tree Crops - New Bores and Dam Desilting Rebate provides a rebate of up to 25% of the cost to drill a new bore or desilt your dam on your drought declared property.  The new bore or desilted dam must be primarily used to water permanent horticulture tree crops.  The maximum amount payment is $25,000 per primary producer enterprise.

For more information, please visit https://www.daf.qld.gov.au/business-priorities/agriculture/disaster-recovery/drought/assistance-programs/australian-dam-desilting-rebate

We were delighted to have Debbie & Ann from Stanthorpe Cancer Support Group visit our Stanthorpe team to accept a cheque for $1,500 from our Charitable Trust.

The Stanthorpe Cancer Support Group provides emotional and financial support to cancer patients within their region. This assistance can range from companionship for the patient and their family as they navigate through the various stages of diagnosis and treatment, through to subsidising costs of any out-of-pocket expenses relating to the cancer treatment.

Thank you Debbie, Ann and team for running such a fantastic community initiative!

The Australian Government have recently re-introduced a superannuation guarantee amnesty period, in which employers with undisclosed information about their employee’s superannuation can come forward with this information to avoid associated penalties. The bill for this movement was raised on 18 September 2019, with the Amnesty period beginning on 24 May 2018 and ending 6 months after the legislation receives Royal Assent.

To qualify, the discloser must:

• Contain information that has not previously been disclosed to the ATO
• Contain information that relates to March 2018 and earlier quarters
• Be made in the approved format, including a super guarantee charge statement
• Be made before the ATO advises of an audit of SGC obligations

Benefits of the amnesty

The amnesty will provide the discloser with a number of advantages that they would not have had ordinarily. These include:

• Deductibility of shortfall interest paid
• Deductibility of contributions offset against superannuation guarantee charge
• Admin component of super payments waived – this is $20 per employee per quarter
• Part 7 penalties waived
  • Part 7 penalties are administered where the employer fails to provide SGC statements or information relevant to assessing the SGC liabilities.
  • This can result in a penalty being applied to the employer totaling to equal or double the super guarantee charge payable by the employer.

Please note that nominal interest still applies, and that the amnesty conditions will fail if payment is not made by the end of the amnesty period, or a payment arrangement is not in place by this time.

If you would like some assistance with bringing your super obligations up to date, please contact our team.

For the July – September quarter, the Charitable Trust raised funds to support The Pyjama Foundation, so our team used this as an excuse to rock their PJ's at work!

The Pyjama Foundation was founded in 2004 to give children in foster care the opportunity to change the direction of their lives with learning, life skills, and confidence.

We were lucky enough to have Karen from The Pyjama Foundation visit our office, to speak about the wonderful work this organisation does via the Love of Learning program and their 'Pyjama Angels' volunteers, and to accept our donation of $1,500.

For more information on this fantastic charity, or to show your support, please visit https://thepyjamafoundation.com/about-us

The Federal Court of Australia has recently made a decision on the amount of personal/carer’s leave that part time employees are entitled to. It has been determined that full-time and part-time employees are both entitled to 10 working days of paid personal leave for each year of employment. Historically, part time employees were only entitled to an amount of personal leave calculated on a pro-rata basis based on the amount of days worked in the year. For example, someone who only worked 4 days per week was only entitled for 80% of the personal leave available to a full time employee, being 8 days.

It is important that this the personal leave taken by part time employees is closely monitored in order to ensure that this won’t be exploited by employees to take advantage of the additional days. The guidelines around when this leave can be taken and the requirements in that regard haven’t changed. This decision is currently being appealed, however for the time being, this is law.

If you have any questions or concerns with regards to how this will affect you, please contact our team.

On 17^th October, the Australian Government introduced improvements to the Farm Household Allowance (FHA) to help more farmers through periods of hardship.

The Government had already made changes to make the FHA quicker and easier to access, by reducing paperwork by a third and by temporarily increasing the farm assets threshold to $5 million from 1 July 2019.

The new changes announced last week provide drought relief for those who have exhausted their four years on FHA, extending farming families’ access to the FHA from three years in their lifetime to four years out of every 10, recognising that farmers experience hardships, including droughts, more than once in their lives.

For more information, visit https://minister.agriculture.gov.au/mckenzie/media-releases/fha-reform or contact our office.

Each quarter we interview one of our clients to get an insight into their business. This issue we spoke to Philip and Claire from AgBiTech.

When did your business commence? 

AgBiTech commenced operations in 2002.

What does your business do? What makes your business successful? 

We manufacture types of naturally occurring viruses that biologically control some the world’s biggest pest caterpillars.  The success we’ve come to enjoy comes from being able to efficiently mass rear millions of caterpillars who make the virus for us.

What has been your biggest achievement to date? 

Our expansion into Brazil and the US where we now have production facilities and laboratories.  In the last 12 months we have also commenced work in several African countries as well as in two Asian locations.  From our humble beginnings of a couple of people in a shed on a farm west of Warra to now having a global team of nearly 100 people reminds us daily that it can take many years of hard work to be an overnight success!

What is one piece of advice you would give to someone starting up a business or looking to expand into overseas markets?

Get local, on ground help you trust, look twice, jump once, and if you stumble, fail fast, learn quickly and move on.

How do you relax from the pressures of being in business?

With AgBiTech effectively operating in several time zones globally, ‘office hours’ can be 24 hours/day.  Balancing up being available to help the wider team as well as operate in Australian business hours requires our local people to have some discipline to be ‘unavailable’, even though technology makes it so easy not to be so.  Family, friends and of course walks around our beautiful city without a device in the pocket help.

We were privileged to have Jen Shaw from Emerge attend morning tea with our team, to talk about the amazing work Emerge does and to accept our donation of $1,500.

Emerge is a social enterprise helping youth in the Toowoomba community, bringing together a dedicated youth space, a fully operational cafe and cooking school, base line resources, and boxing and fitness programs for youth in our region who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of homelessness.

Our donation is helping with the upcoming Box Off The Streets Corporate Charity Fight Night. For more information on this event, or on how you can support Emerge Toowoomba, please visit https://www.facebook.com/emergetoowoomba/

The new Banking Code of Practice, which commenced from 1 July 2019, is a set of enforceable standards that customers, small businesses and their guarantors can expect from Australian banks.

Key benefits of the new Banking Code of Practice include:

• Greater protection for customers
• Basic, low or no fee accounts
• Stronger enforcement and compliance
• Easier credit card management
• Easier for small business

For more information, please visit https://www.ausbanking.org.au/campaigns/new-banking-code/

Baby News

Congratulations to Boyd Stephenson of our Toowoomba office and his partner Jess on the arrival of Amelia Kate Stephenson, weighing in at 3.033kg.

Hang Ya Boss Out to Dry

Power Tynan once again participated in Hang Ya Boss Out to Dry.

This event is a major fundraiser for the Toowoomba Hospice, who provides free palliative care for the terminally ill of Toowoomba and surrounding areas and relies on the local community for support.

This year, Director Dan Beck was the lucky ‘boss’, placed in a cherry picker and raised up into the air (quite a challenge for someone who is AFRAID OF HEIGHTS!), and had to raise a minimum of $3,000 before he was allowed back down.

Dan did a FANTASTIC job fundraising (even after a slight machine malfunction!), and raised a total of $4,238.

Thank you to our generous clients, referral partners and team members who supported this very worthy cause.

Graduation

Congratulations to Aimee Rowe and Caitlin Ruthenberg, our most recent university graduates!

Homeless for a Night Sleepout

Members of the Power Tynan team braved the Toowoomba winter and slept out on the streets to show their support for Base Services, raising awareness of homelessness in our community.

Base Services run the local soup kitchen. Most days the Basement Soup Kitchen sees 60 to 80 people in need including men and women, individuals and families of all ages who are homeless or at high risk of homelessness.

The Basement Soup Kitchen is vital for those doing it tough in Toowoomba, as it is often the only meal that person will eat for the day and the only place where they are able to connect and feel accepted. It also provides access to blankets, swags, warm clothing and links to accommodation and other necessary services.

Their next fundraising event is Hike for Homeless, being held on 26^th October. For more information, or to register for the event, visit https://www.mycause.com.au/events/hikeforhomeless

Engagements Galore!

Congratulations to Lauren, Sammi and Caitlin, whose respective partners Joe, Andy and Chris all popped the question during the last few months.