February 2022 Update

February 2022 - Inside this issue

COVID Government Support

There are a number of COVID-19 financial support schemes available to businesses.

Financial support is available to help you pay staff if they have to self-isolate while waiting for a COVID-19 test result, or because they have COVID-19, and are unable to work from home.

Short-Term Absence Payment

The Short-Term Absence Payment is available to employers to pay workers who follow public health guidance and stay home while waiting for a COVID-19 test result.  It’s also available to eligible self-employed workers. To be eligible, workers need to be unable to work from home and need to miss work while waiting for their test results.

  • How much?

There’s a one-off payment of $359 payment for each eligible worker. Employers or the self-employed can apply for any worker once in any 30-day period, unless a health official or doctor tells the worker to get another test.

  • How to apply

You can apply on the Work and Income website.

More information and how to apply (external link) — Work and Income


Leave Support Scheme

The COVID-19 Leave Support Scheme is available to employers to help pay employees who have been advised to self-isolate because of COVID-19 and can’t work from home. It’s also available to eligible self-employed workers.

  • How much?

$600 per week for full-time workers and $359 per week for part-time workers.

  • How to apply

You can apply on the Work and Income website.

How to apply for the Leave Support Scheme(external link) — Work and Income

Leave Support Scheme(external link) — Work and Income


Small Business Cash Flow Loan Scheme (SBCS)

Under the Small Business Cash Flow Loan Scheme the Government provides loans to small businesses, including sole traders and the self-employed, impacted by COVID-19 to support their cash flow needs.

If you've previously applied for a SBCS and have fully repaid it, you can apply again.

Applications are open until 31 December 2023. You can apply through myIR.

The small business cash flow loan scheme will provide assistance of up to a maximum of $100,000 to businesses employing 50 or fewer full-time employees. This includes sole traders and self-employed businesses.

Details of the loans include:

  • $10,000 to be provided to eligible businesses
  • an additional $1800 per equivalent full-time employee
  • interest free if the loan is paid back within two years
  • an interest rate of 3% for a maximum term of five years
  • repayments not required for the first two years
  • you must show at least a 30% drop in revenue due to Covid-19, measured over a 14-day period in the past six months compared with the same 14-day period a year ago. If your revenue from the same period a year ago was also affected by COVID-19, compare the same 14-day period two years ago.
  • maximum amount you can borrow depends on the number of full-time and part-time employees.

Use the small business cash flow loan scheme eligibility tool and find out how to apply.

COVID-19: Small business cash flow loan scheme eligibility tool

myIR(external link) — Inland Revenue

If your businesses doesn’t have a myIR account, you will need to create one to apply.

Register a myIR account for a business or organisation(external link) — Inland Revenue

Most applicants will receive their loan payment in full from Inland Revenue within five working days. You don’t have to accept the full loan amount you’re offered, and can decide to take a smaller loan.


Financial support tool

If you want help figuring out what financial help you might be able to apply for, try the financial support tool on the Unite against Covid website.

The tool will take you through a series of questions about to find out more about your personal situation including:

  • your work status
  • your situation
  • whether your workplace has reduced business.

COVID-19 Financial support tool(external link) — covid19.govt.nz

Regional Business Partner Network

The Regional Business Partner Network is a gateway that connects you to the right advice, people and resources. Working together, we can help you strengthen and grow your business in many different ways.

Funded by the New Zealand government, the RBP Network consists of 14 regional growth agencies throughout the country. This means you’ll get support from people who live and work in your region.

Tael Solutions is now a registered Service Provider under this Network and we can provide business strategy mentoring fully funded by the Regional Business Partner Network.

How can they help?

Once you've registered with them here, they will match you with a local growth advisor, who will help you take a birds-eye look at your whole business.

Based on your specific needs, they'll connect you with the right resources, people, training and funding to help move your business forward.

You can request to apply for business strategy mentoring and request Tael Solutions as your service provider.

Monthly Instalment Arrangements for the March 2023 Financial Year

For many of our customers a good way to manage their cashflow is to sign up for our Monthly Instalment Arrangements (MIA’s)**, this helps by splitting the cost of your yearly services across the year.  

We will be sending out the MIA letters in February for commencement 1 April 2022 – If you do not already have a MIA and would like more information or for us to prepare one for your consideration please let us know by emailing: info@taelsolutions.co.nz

**Terms and conditions apply.

Dividends

It is dividend review time again. As usual we will be writing to all our companies who may be in a position to declare a dividend for the March 2022 year.

These letters have recently been sent out; we ask that you please respond to this letter by the 14th February 2022 to ensure we can prepare, declare and file the dividends prior to 31 March 2022.

If you would like further information on dividends, here is a guide from the IRD.

Important Tax Dates

The Tael 2022 Tax Calendars are available from our website here or you can collect one from the office.

Upcoming Tax Dates:

28 February 2022 – December/January GST payments are due to the IRD.

7 April 2022 – 2021 Terminal Tax is due for payment to the IRD.

7 May 2022 – 3rd Instalment of 2022 Provisional Tax is due for payment to the IRD.

Scheduling March 2022

We are in the process of finalising the scheduling letters to advise you when your March 2022 accounts information is due to us.

The April and May clients will have their letters emailed around the beginning of March, the June and July clients in April. All other letters will be emailed later.  

Please read through your scheduling letter once it is emailed to you and contact us to arrange providing us with your records.

Sending Electronic Records

Due to the recent changes in the privacy legislation, we can no longer accept clients records via Google docs, Dropbox or another other external document depository.

To safely send in your annual accounts information, you can email the documents to a TAEL email address or upload the documents to Xero Files in their Xero.

We do recommend using and uploading your documents into Xero files as this sits within your Xero software and keeps all your information in one place.

Please find instructions here on how to save and file your end of year records to your Xero software.

Budgeting for the new year

If 2021 had you stressing about money, you’re not the only one, most people in 2021 felt the strain of the global pandemic in one way or another and are just as anxious about their financial health as their physical well-being.

Here are a few tips to take control of your budget in the new year ahead.

Read the article here: Budgeting for the New Year

Xero Online Training

To continue our client training, we have decided to host another Xero online training while we are still in red traffic light setting.

Designed for new Xero users, or a refresher for those who are still unsure, on how to reconcile transactions, create invoices and bills to pay and get the best from the cloud based system.

The training will be held online using Microsoft Teams, Tuesday 22nd February at 10am. Training will last approximately an hour and a half.

Please register your interest to attend by clicking on the link below.

You will then be sent an the online meeting link the week of the training.

Register for the training here:

Xero Basics - February online training

If you have any questions or concerns for us, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

From


THE TAEL SOLUTIONS TEAM