Polson Higgs
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UNITED STATES When monthly total employment job losses began to jump 18 months ago, the total number of “job separations,” as economists refer to people quitting, being fired and being laid off, didn’t increase. In fact, unlike the last recession, the monthly job separations rate reached its lowest rate on record, 3.1 percent since January. UNITED STATES Not all unemployed are created equal. There are those who recently graduated from school and haven’t held a job yet. There are those who have made horrible mistakes and have been terminated. There are those who have been working hard every day but had to be let go when their company fell on hard times. There are those who have done nothing wrong at all, but find that their positions just aren’t as essential today as they were five years ago. A much awaited decision of the Court of Appeal was delivered on 4 June 2010. This is the most recent and most authoritative NZ Court decision regarding the use of structures by Small to Medium size entities where those structures result in the top personal tax rate being replaced by the lower company/trust tax rate. Penny & Hooper were both orthopaedic surgeons practicing in Christchurch as sole traders who restructured their businesses so that they were carried on by companies in 1997 and 2000 respectively. In both cases, as a result of salaries from the newly formed companies being lower than their previous self employed earnings, significant tax savings were achieved. Bill English delivered his second budget on 20 May 2010 with an overall focus of reforming the tax system, continuing to get value for money from the public service, and further strengthening Government finances. The backdrop to the 2010 budget is more positive than 12 months ago, with the global financial crisis taking less of a toll than anticipated on the New Zealand economy and therefore the recovery coming sooner than was originally forecast. The objective of transforming the tax system was addressed by movement in all levels of personal income tax rates: Welcome to our Autumn Update In this edition of our Update we review returns for the past three months to 31 March 2010 but first we discuss how investing is like marathon running. Marathon anybody? The analogy of the marathon runner is useful when it comes to investing core wealth. Most marathons include several notorious uphill stretches where the endurance and stamina of athletes is pushed to the limit. Investors felt the same all through 2008 and into 2009. Recently we have fielded a lot of questions regarding online packages such as Xero. Traditionally, accounting packages have been sold as a desktop application that were installed onto your computer and accessed the data stored on that computer or a local server. Recently, there has been a move to online software where the data and program is hosted by the service provider and you access your data through your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc). Rather than pay a large sum upfront for the software, the online providers work on a model known as ‘Software as a Service’ where monthly or annual charges are compulsory.
Landmark Tax Cases Head To Supreme Court (7th July 2010)
The much talked about tax fight between two Christchurch surgeons and the IRD is being appealed to the Supreme Court. The appeal by orthopaedic surgeons Ian Penny and Gary Hooper is not unexpected as the ultimate outcome of their cases could have wide implications for thousands of small businesses.
MRINetwork's First Friday Preview (3rd July 2010)
Liquidity Returns to the Candidate Market, Somewhat
MRINetwork's First Friday Preview (6th June 2010)
High Unemployment Isn’t Providing a Large Candidate Pool
CIR vs Penny & Hooper – Change To Company Structure was Tax Avoidance (8th June 2010)
Budget 2010 - A Short Overview (21st May 2010)
Polson Higgs Wealth Management Autumn Update 2010 (4th May 2010)
Investing Core Wealth Is Like Running A Marathon
Xero Partner Status (3rd May 2010)
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Last updated: 19th July 2010 | 2:44 pm
