Weekly Tax Highlights - 8th - 12th June 1998

General tax news

1998 Year end tax planning - Crucial year end action items of which you should be aware include:

Private Companies and loans to shareholders - In order to prevent a loan made to a shareholder (or their associate) on or after 4 December 1997 from being deemed to be an unfrankable and unrebateable dividend (and to ensure that the company's franking account is not reduced by such a deemed dividend), it is essential that the loan be repaid before 30 June 1998, or alternatively, if reliance is to be placed on the written agreement exclusion in new Div 7A (s109N) that the written agreement be prepared by 30 June 1998.

Changes to the remittance of PAYE, PPS and RPS deductions are due to take effect from 1 July 1998. In many cases, these deductions will need to be made much earlier than is currently the case and for those whose annual remittances exceed $1 million, remittances need to be made electronically.