Company Tax Time
I'm currently in the process of filling out our company tax return, and I now understand why the ATO provides companies with up to nine months to complete this task. Put simply, the form is not user friendly.

Personal tax, even with all the suppliments, is a walk in the park compared to company tax. Personal tax assumes that you don't have a copy of the taxation act on your desk, or know how attributed foreign income differs from its unattributed counterpart.

Personal tax provides great refernces to resources that explains all the terms used, whereas with company tax one needs to do much more research.

The question could be asked: why isn't our accountant handling all this? Well, despite our accountant doing a good job of establishing the company, they've been fairly silent except for a glossy pamphlet reminding us that they'd love to fill in our personal tax returns.

In particular they've done nothing to let us know of the approaching company tax deadlines, or even ask for our financial records so they could make a start on completing the return. I don't imagine most new company directors know when their company tax is due, and rely upon their accountants to tell them. I was in this case until I got suspicious of the silence. So in short, our accountants have failed the 'caring' test.

Given the amount the accountants would have charged for the return, and given that our 2003-04 return is relatively straightforward, we're making a slight profit doing it ourselves, even though I could be spending the time out doing real work.