Tax Planning Meeting Preparation

Most business owners meet their accountant to talk about a year that has already happened. The numbers are final, the options are gone, and the meeting is really just finding out the score. A tax planning meeting is the opposite: it happens in May or June, while the year is still open, and its whole point is that decisions made before 30th June can still change the outcome. After that date, the same conversation is just commentary.

Why the timing matters

Almost every planning lever — contributing to super, writing off a bad debt, bringing forward an expense, documenting a trust resolution — only works if it is actually done, and documented, before the year ends on 30th June. A planning meeting in May leaves weeks to act. A planning meeting in July is a review of missed chances.

What to bring

• An interim profit and loss and balance sheet — to 30th April or 31st May is ideal, so the year can be projected from real figures rather than guesses.
• A list of debtors and creditors, and any large invoices you expect to issue or receive before year end.
• Year-to-date payroll and super figures, including anything accrued but not yet paid.
• Any planned equipment or vehicle purchases, with rough costs and timing.
• Anything structural on the horizon — a new partner, a property purchase, a family member joining the business, plans to sell.

What can be on the table

Every item below is a category to discuss, not a recommendation — whether any of them suits you depends entirely on your circumstances, and some carry conditions that make them unhelpful if applied blindly.

• Timing of income and expenses — whether deferring or bringing forward amounts across 30th June makes sense given the rates and results of both years.
• Superannuation contributions — contribution caps apply, and a contribution generally counts for the year the fund receives it, so timing near 30th June matters. Whether extra contributions make sense is an individual question.
• Asset purchases — depreciation and instant write-off thresholds have changed from year to year, so the current rules need checking before any purchase is justified on tax grounds.
• Structure — whether the entity you trade through still fits the size and risk of the business, and whether trustee resolutions will be documented before 30th June where trusts are involved.
• Housekeeping with tax effect — bad debts, obsolete stock and prepayments, each with its own conditions.

Planning is not evasion

Tax planning means arranging real transactions, on real facts, within the rules — and being able to show the paperwork. It does not mean backdating documents, inventing expenses or moving income to people who did not earn it. A useful test: if an idea only works when the facts are fudged, it is not planning, and a good adviser will say so in the meeting.

What we commonly see go wrong

• The meeting happens in July, when nothing can be changed.
• Equipment bought purely for the deduction — spending a dollar to save less than a dollar of tax never made anyone richer.
• Super paid in the last week of June through a clearing house and arriving in July, landing in the wrong year.
• Trust distributions decided in September for a year that ended in June, with no resolution from before 30th June to support them.

A worked example

As an illustration: a trades business has a strong year and meets its accountant in mid-May with figures to 30th April. The projection shows profit well above last year. Out of the meeting come dated decisions: super topped up early in June within the caps, an already-needed ute ordered in time, obsolete stock identified for the stocktake, and the trustee resolution drafted for signing before 30th June. None of it was exotic — the value was that everything happened on the right side of the date.

When to get help

If your profit is tracking well above or below last year, if a big purchase or sale is coming, or if you have never had a planning conversation and only ever a reporting one, book the meeting for May — not July. Ask what the agenda will cover and what figures to bring, and treat the actions that come out of it as dated deadlines, because that is exactly what they are.

Is tax planning legal?

Yes. Planning means arranging genuine transactions within the rules and documenting them properly — timing, super, structures and similar levers. It is entirely different from schemes, backdating or inventing facts, which no reputable adviser will touch.

When should a tax planning meeting happen?

May is ideal, June at the latest, because most planning decisions only work if they are actioned and documented before 30th June. Meeting after year end turns planning into commentary on what can no longer be changed.

Is buying equipment before 30th June always a good idea?

No. A purchase can make sense if the business genuinely needs the asset and the current depreciation rules suit, but buying purely for a deduction means spending a dollar to save less than a dollar of tax. The current-year rules should be checked before relying on any write-off treatment.