Stewart & Co Blog

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

05/10/2016 by Laurinda Sanders

1 in 9 New Zealand women are affected by Breast Cancer in their lifetime and today 8 New Zealand women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. It seems now that every person you talk to has a story of someone they know who is affected by this.

The New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation works to:

Promote awareness and education of what breast cancer is and how to detect it;
Provide support for those going through treatment; and
Fund research into detection and treatment.

To show our support for this great organisation, we will be going Pink for a Day on October 26^th to help raise much needed funds for this great charity and have set up a fund raising page with the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation. If you are interested in making a donation please follow the image below:

Alternatively, you may like to set up your own page and have your workplace go Pink for a Day in October. Click on the image below to find out more:

100% of the funds raised go to the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation and all donations over $5 entitle you to a tax rebate, just remember to print out your receipt and put it in with your end of year tax information and we will do the rest.

Deductibility of Gifts

11/09/2016 by Laurinda Sanders

VS.

With Christmas not too far around the corner, we thought it a good time to update you on IRD's current position regarding gifts to customers, clients and staff.

The IRD have recently reinterpreted their position on the giving of food and drink as gifts. Where these are to be consumed off the business premises the IRD consider these to be only 50% deductible. This is a change from their previous interpretation of these being 100% deductible. The reason IRD say is that there is an element of both business and personal benefit from the gift – benefit to the business giving the gift and enjoyment for the person receiving it.

So what does this mean:

If you give food or drink as a gift, including as part of a gift basket, this is only 50% deductible as an expense.
If you give a gift basket which contains both food and drink and non-food items, you may need to split this cost of this between the two.
If you give something other than food and drink as a gift, this is 100% deductible.

So when looking at what to gift to your customers, clients and staff you may like to look outside the box on what to give. Some ideas we have seen include:

Umbrella's or sunshades
Beach Towels
Pot plants
Gift Vouchers

E-GST Now Available Through MYOB and Xero

21/07/2016 by Laurinda Sanders

Its official, you can now file your GST returns directly with the IRD through both Xero and MYOB Essentials cloud-based accounting software. E-GST will be available in MYOB AccountRight soon.

So how does this work:

Firstly, you will need to ensure that you have a myIR login with the IRD. If you do not have this set up, head over to the IRD website www.ird.govt.nz and click on the Register link for myIR.

Stewart & Co Blog

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Deductibility of Gifts

E-GST Now Available Through MYOB and Xero

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