April 2014 E Newsletter

Welcome

Welcome to the April edition of Focus. We hope you had a great & restful Easter. This month, we highlight the Student Loan changes from 1 April 2014, the foreign superannuation tax changes and share an article about the continuing expansion of Walker Wayland Australasia.

Student loan changes from 1 April 2014

The following proposed changes are planned to take effect from 1 April 2014 and will affect overseas-based borrowers:

• Your annual repayment obligation will be set at a fixed minimum. This will not decrease over time.
• If your loan balance is over $45,000 you’ll need to pay more towards your loan each year.
• If you haven’t been meeting your obligations while you’ve been living overseas, you may be stopped from leaving New Zealand next time you visit.

The IRD now receives contact details from overseas adult passport applications and renewals from the Department of Internal Affairs. This allows the IRD to contact overseas-based borrowers in arrears.

Changes to the taxation of foreign superannuation

As part of the recently enacted Taxation (Annual Rates, Foreign Superannuation, and Remedial Matters) Act 2014, changes have been made to the taxation of interests in foreign superannuation schemes held by New Zealand residents. 

More information is available on the IRD website.

Advantage / Walker Wayland break into top tier

We celebrate the news that the Walker Wayland Australasia accounting network continues to expand, breaking into the Top 25 firms in Australia ranked by influential business magazine BRW.

Advantage Advisors joined the Walker Wayland group in June 2013.

The group moved up from 27th in 2012 to 24th place in the rankings, recording the second highest growth among firms listed in the BRW Top 100 Accounting Firms realeased at the end of October.

In a year when most of the top firms have seen revenues shrink, the Walker Wayland group recorded revenue growth of 37 percent.

The growth confirms the success of our structure. Walker Wayland differs from most other accounting networks as its structure has a primary objective for members to share information, skills and resources.

Other networks are organised primarily for business referral.

During the year we have witnessed strong growth in cooperative activity within the group, combining to undertake projects such as major audits and working together on merger and acquisition plans for clients.

We have also strengthened our committee system to share knowledge among members and to formulate strategies to develop greater offerings for our clients.

Each client of a Walker Wayland member firm now has the combined experience and wisdom of 50 partners and hundreds of highly qualified staff. This means that every industry in Australia and New Zealand is represented by at least one partner with specialist skills and knowledge.

Client login area on our website

A reminder to clients that we do offer a client login facility through our website.  To access, please click on the Client Login button and follow the prompts.  You can then download documents for us to retrieve and access documents, files, accounting data, and financial reports.