A Week in Review
Time for a Promo…
It has been a surprisingly quiet time in the tax updates arena over the past seven days, in an otherwise frantically busy time of the year, as the in-flow of 2019 year-end related tasks (tax returns, financial statements) engulfs us all.
I thought there would be no better time therefore, to shamelessly promote some of the other things that I do when I am not drafting the weekly editions of AWIR.
One of the reasons I commenced AWIR nearly three years ago (first edition was 12 August 2016), was to assist in the promotion of a new tax advisory service we had launched, that was targeted towards other accountancy practices (predominately Auckland based), who either lacked their own internal tax specialist resource, or had sufficient expertise but were often looking for a sounding board to bounce ideas off or to provide a second opinion.
Our tax advisory service offering has four main components:
- A question and answer (Q&A) service, where either by phone or via a brief email, I am called upon to provide answers to those more curly questions that may crop up when preparing the clients annual financials or as the result of a query from the client themselves. There is no minimum cost to use the Q&A service, my time to provide a response recorded as appropriate, with a monthly invoice issued to which is attached a WIP report so you can see exactly where the time has been spent, and more importantly, in relation to which client for your own billing purposes;
- The preparation of more detailed tax opinions to provide commentary with respect to the application of NZ tax legislation as appropriate to your client’s transactions or structures. By far the most common opinions provided under this aspect of the advisory service offering, are in respect to land-related projects (subdivisions, tainting issues, GST consequences) and tax residency determinations. These more detailed opinions are first scoped to ensure all parties are on the same page as to the extent of the advice to be provided, and then costed upfront so your client is fully aware of the fees they will be incurred to receive the advice with a “no surprises” policy;
- Assistance with IRD risk reviews, which may have evolved into a full audit by the time I become involved. The extent of the service offered ranges from providing simple strategy advice through to complete management of the review/audit process. As everyone will no doubt appreciate, when it comes to dealing with the Revenue, “how long is a piece of string” in terms of trying to estimate the level of work that may be involved to conclude the review, so I instead provide upfront cost estimates on a task by task basis – cost to prepare initial response letter, cost to attend a meeting, cost to draft a NOPA etc; and,
- Assisting with IRD tax arrears issues your clients may have, providing a service to help identify potential solutions to manage tax debts, which can range from negotiating simple instalment repayment plans to preparing applications for a full write-off of all debt under financial hardship relief provisions. Once again it becomes the “how long is a piece of string question”, which dictates upfront costing estimates (often more critical here if the client is already under financial pressure) on a task by task basis.
I also undertake a fair amount of cross-border advisory work, particularly with Australian accounting practices who have clients looking to expand their business operations to NZ. Equally, I assist NZ based businesses looking to go offshore, this service offering certainly enhanced by GS being affiliated with international accountancy and legal groups, enabling us to connect with independent firms just like ours all over the globe, providing in essence in-country expertise.
While the tax advisory offering is targeted towards accounting practices, it is, in essence, available to anyone who has a need, so please do not hesitate to contact me accordingly.
Right, enough of the plug, back to the more exciting stuff in next week’s edition.