Your upcoming tax calendar for May and June 2025
Clarke McEwan Accountants
The end of the current financial year is upon us. For most of you, this means preparation to start finalising your general ledger accounts for the upcoming end of year compliance.
However, it can be a time when we forget our final business obligations whether it be the due date of your Fringe benefits tax (FBT) return or paying off your end of year superannuation guarantee obligations.
In order for you to be across all upcoming due dates and deadlines, please find a list of the key compliance dates below for May and June 2025.
Make sure these lodgments are up to date to avoid any interest or penalties.
KEY TAX DATES – MAY/JUNE 2025
- 15 May 2025 – Income tax – Lodge 2024 tax returns for all entities that did not have to lodge earlier, and are not eligible for the 5 June concession.
- 21 May 2025 – PAYG withheld – Monthly activity statement and payment for April 2025
- 21 May 2025 – PAYG instalment – Activity Statement and payment for monthly reporters for April 2025
- 21 May 2025 – FBT – FBT return for the year ended 31 March 2025 to be lodged, together with payment if you do not lodge with us
- 21 May 2025 – FBT - Final date to add new FBT clients to your client list to ensure they receive the lodgment and payment concessions for their FBT returns
- 28 May 2025 – FBT – Pay FBT annual return if lodging electronically
- 28 May 2025 – Superannuation guarantee – Due date for superannuation guarantee contributions for January to March 2025.
- 5 June 2025 – Income tax – Due date for lodgment of tax returns of all entities 5 June concession. Note: Entities eligible for the 5 June 2025 concessional due date can lodge by 8 June 2025, as long as any liability due is paid by this date. You do not need to apply for a deferral.
- 21 June 2025 – GST – Monthly Activity Statement and payment for May 2025
- 21 June 2025 – PAYG withheld and PAYG instalment – Monthly Activity Statement and payment for May 2025
- 25 June 2025 – FBT – Lodge 2025 FBT annual return for tax agents if lodging electronically, if you are lodging with us
- 30 June 2025 – Superannuation guarantee – Super guarantee contributions must be paid by this date to qualify for a tax deduction in the 2024–25 financial year.
We’re here to help if you’re facing operational issues, tackling people challenges, or have health and safety questions, give us a call, email or text us.
Business ratios
The purpose of a business is to make money, and that means you need to know the difference between profit and cash flow. Net profit is what you have left after you deduct all your business expenses from all your revenue. You can improve net profit only by changing the things that affect revenue and expenses. For example, if: You renegotiate with your suppliers, you may get stock cheaper, or carry less inventory Your staff engage with customers better, you can learn more about what they do and don’t like – and get more business You can roster staff differently, you may be able to run your business more efficiently. Cash flow comes from various sources. However, it also covers operating expenses, taxes, equipment purchases, repayments, distribution, and so on. Note that a profitable business does not always have good cash flow. And a business with good cash flow is not always profitable. For example, you can have good cash flow, and loss-making expenses. To work out how fast you can grow your business, look at your projected cash flow. We can advise you on this. Keeping cash crowned as King Your business can’t survive without cash. The following six takeaways are essential for business success: Protect your cash position, by knowing what it is. Build a cash flow statement and always keep it up-to-date. If you foresee a shortfall, start at once to fix it. Create a cash buffer as an insurance against unexpected difficulties. Protect your cash position against revenue shocks, by maintaining a balance equivalent to at least two months of operating expenses. Be realistic with revenue expectations. Take action now if it looks like sales are not going to get you to breakeven. Credit checking up front will reduce the risk of customer non-payment. Make sure you follow up with clear payment terms agreed in writing. Communicate regularly with customers and automate where possible. Every dollar you spend reduces cash reserves. The best way to protect your cash is to create a budget for the spend you know you need, and stick to it. Looking to improve cash flow? Make a time to talk to us. We're here to help.
Would your business still thrive, or would it suffer a catastrophic failure if you suddenly stepped away? It’s tough to remove yourself from the day-to-day operations when you’re passionate and busy. However sudden accidents, illnesses, or family emergencies can – and will – happen and you need to be able to step back knowing your systems are robust enough to cope. Build in resilience For your business to work for you, you need to make yourself replaceable. Large corporations have plans in place to mitigate what’s known as ‘Key Person Risk’. But when you run a small entrepreneurial venture, who is the backup? The more you can train and empower your team to perform the business’s essential daily functions without micromanagement, the closer you'll be able to enjoy a lifestyle business. Establish repeatable and scalable support infrastructure to run the daily operations and create a great team that you can lean on. Your staff need a common purpose – knowing why what they’re doing matters – as well as clear expectations around their roles. By creating a suitable work environment, where employees both individually and as a team are more efficient and likely to enjoy what they do, you’ll breathe easier knowing they have your back (and your business) in an emergency. Finally, it’s important to know what the business looks like without you. An exit strategy is often thought of as the way to end a business — which it can be — but in best practice, it’s a plan that moves a business toward long-term goals and allows a smooth transition to a new phase. That may involve re-imagining business direction or leadership, keeping financially sustainable, or pivoting for challenges. A fully formed exit strategy takes all business stakeholders, finances and operations into account and details all actions necessary to sell or close. Strong plans recognise the true value of a business and provide a foundation for future goals and new directions. Top Tips: 1. No one is irreplaceable – Challenge yourself to step away for a week. Which systems fall over? Which procedures get left hanging? Which duties get ignored? Go cold turkey as a test case for the time you may have to leave your business in the hands of others. 2. Embrace innovation – Get systems that are simple, streamlined, effective and can be used by multiple key team members. Make sure anyone can log in and see exactly what’s needed for what reason at any time. 3.Recognise the value you’re creating - A business that doesn’t rely on its owner is worth a lot more when the time comes to sell or pass the reins to someone else. Talk to our team about structuring your business to make it more reliable.
Working for yourself or running your own business? Setup robust systems for expenses & tax requirements so you can focus on your important tasks. We can help take the headaches out of your business accounting.
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20% reduction in student debt The reduction is expected to benefit more than 3 million Australians and remove over $16 billion in outstanding debt. The 20% reduction will be automatically applied to anyone with the following student loans: · HELP loans (eg, HECS-HELP, FEE-HELP, STARTUP-HELP, SA-HELP, OS-HELP) · VET Student loans · Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans · Student Start-up Loans · Student Financial Supplement Scheme. The reduction will be based on the loan balance at 1 June 2025, before indexation was applied. Indexation will only apply to the reduced balance. The ATO will apply the reduction automatically on a retrospective basis and will adjust the indexation that is applied. No action is needed from those with a student loan balance and the Government has indicated that you will be notified once the reduction has been applied. If you had a HELP debt showing on your ATO account on 1 April 2025 but you paid the debt off after 1 June 2025 then the reduction will normally trigger a credit to your HELP account. If you don’t have any other outstanding tax or other debts to the Commonwealth, then the credit should be refunded to you. The HELP debt estimator is a useful tool to get an idea of the reduction amount, please reach out if you need any help in working out eligibility. Changes to repayments The Government has also modified the way that HELP and student loan repayments operate, primarily by increasing the amount that individuals can earn before they need to make repayments. The minimum repayment threshold for the 2025-26 year is being increased from $56,156 to $67,000. The threshold was $54,435 for the 2024-25 year. Under the new repayment system an individual will only need to make a compulsory repayment for the 2025-26 year if their income is above $67,000. The repayments will be calculated only against the portion of income that is above $67,000. Repayments will still be made through the tax system and will typically be determined when tax returns are lodged with the ATO. For many people the change in the rules will mean they have more disposable income in the short term, but it will take longer to pay off student loans. The main exception to this will be when an individual chooses to make voluntary repayments.
The Productivity Commission (PC) has been tasked by the Australian Government to conduct an inquiry into creating a more dynamic and resilient economy. The PC was asked to identify priority reforms and develop actionable recommendations. The PC has now released its interim report which presents some draft recommendations that are focused on two key areas: · Corporate tax reform to spur business investment · Where efficiencies could be made in the regulatory space (ie, cutting down on red tape) The interim report makes some interesting observations and key features of the draft recommendations are summarised below. Corporate tax reform The PC notes that business investment has fallen notably over the past decade and that the corporate tax system has a significant part to play in addressing this. The PC is basically suggesting that the existing corporate tax system needs to be updated to move towards a more efficient mix of taxes. The first stage of this process would involve two linked components: · Lower tax rate: businesses earning under $1 billion could have their tax rate reduced to 20%, with larger businesses still subject to a 30% rate. · New cashflow tax: a net cashflow tax of 5% should be applied to company profits. Under this system, companies would be able to fully deduct capital expenditure in the year it is incurred, encouraging investment and helping to produce a more dynamic and resilient economy. However, the new tax is expected to create an increased tax burden for companies earning over $1 billion. Cutting down on red tape The interim report notes that businesses have reported spending more time on regulatory compliance – this probably doesn’t come as a surprise to most business owners who have been forced to deal with multiple layers of government regulation. Some real world examples include windfarm approvals taking up to nine years in NSW while starting a café in Brisbane could involve up to 31 separate regulatory steps. The proposed fixes include: · The Australian Government adopting a whole-of-government statement committing to new principles and processes to drive regulation that supports economic dynamism. · Regulation should be scrutinised to ensure that its impact on growth and dynamism is more fully considered. · Public servants should be subject to enhanced expectations, making them accountable for delivering growth, competition and innovation. These are simply draft recommendations contained in an interim report so we are a long way from any of these recommendations being implemented. However, the interim report provides some insight into areas where the Government might look to make some changes to boost productivity in Australia. The PC is inviting feedback up until 15 September on the interim report before finalising its recommendations later this year.
