Revenue vs Profit: Why Growing Sales Don’t Always Grow Your Business One of the most common things I hear from business owners goes something like this: “We had our biggest year ever, so why doesn’t it feel like it?” Sales are up. The team is flat out. New clients keep coming in. But the bank […]
Why Clear Business Direction Makes Running a Business Lighter There’s a particular kind of tired that comes with running a business without clear direction. It’s not just the hours. It’s the constant weight of deciding everything, all the time, with no clear sense of whether it’s adding up to anything. Plenty of owners know that […]
Hustle Culture: Why Working Harder Isn’t Growing Your Business There’s a version of business ownership that gets celebrated everywhere. First in, last out. Phone on at dinner. Weekends spent catching up on quotes and invoices. Hustle culture tells you that’s simply what it takes. For a while, it probably was. Most businesses turning over between […]
How to Fix an Owner Dependent Business Being “needed” doesn’t always mean you’re someone special in the business. There’s a stage in many growing businesses where the owner becomes the centre of everything. Questions come to you. Problems land on your desk. Decisions wait for your approval. On the surface, it can feel productive. You’re […]
Discretionary Trust Tax Problems for Business Owners The proposed 30% minimum tax on discretionary trusts is not just a technical tax change. It goes directly to the heart of how Australian SMEs, family groups and professional businesses have historically structured profit distribution and wealth accumulation. And the biggest mistake clients can make right now is […]
50% CGT Discount Removal for Business Owners The proposed removal of the general 50% Capital Gains Tax discount from 1 July 2027 is one of the biggest tax changes Australian business owners and investors have faced in decades. But the most important issue is not just the higher tax rate. It is understanding how the […]
Your Farm Structure Is at Risk The Federal Budget proposals around trusts and Capital Gains Tax are not just a “big business” or “property investor” issue. They go directly to the heart of how Australian farming families hold land, operate businesses, distribute income, transition generations, and ultimately exit or transfer wealth. And while many farming […]
From Tax Strategy to Investment Strategy For years, negative gearing has been one of the foundational tax strategies underpinning Australian residential property investment. The proposed Budget reforms directly challenge that model. And while much of the media commentary has focused on politics and property prices, the real issue for investors is this: the economics of […]
Your Business Structure May Be Obsolete For the last 20 years, the classic SME structure in Australia relied on discretionary trusts, family distributions, and surplus profits pushed into a bucket company with tax capped at 25% or 30%. The Budget does not specifically abolish this strategy. But it may fundamentally change whether it still works. […]
The Succession Cliff: What the Data Says, and What I Say to Clients Recent research puts a number on something I see in almost every second client meeting: close to a third of Australian small business owners plan to retire within the next five years, and only a small fraction of them have an actual, […]