The JobKeeper subsidy has progressed beyond the rush for eligibility and entered its second phase: compliance. Late last month, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) released guidance highlighting where the regulator will focus its compliance resources. The JobKeeper estimates error Hindsight is a dangerous lens as Treasury discovered last month announcing that the number of employees expected to be covered by the JobKeeper scheme was overstated in the original announcement by approximat...

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in dramatic and unprecedented changes for many families and households, impacting social lives, workplaces and finances. As financial advisers, we are responding to the unfolding crisis to assist our clients to manage the financial repercussions. From looking at how the Government's measures will impact your finances, to developing a plan to assist you to be positioned in the best possible way to make it through this period, we can provide suppo...

Now is not the time to try and time the markets     After showing great resilience, and perhaps a degree of complacency, equity markets have fallen sharply in recent days. A relatively sudden surge of confirmation of corona virus outbreaks outside of China has been the main trigger for the correction. However, Apple's removal of previous earnings guidance and a deterioration in some leading economic indicators (such as the preliminary reading of the U.S. Purchasing Mana...

The Hunt for Dividend Income in 2020 With interest rates at historic lows and likely to stay that way for some time, retirees and other investors who depend on income from their investments are on the lookout for a decent yield. Income from all the usual sources, such as term deposits and other fixed interest investments, have slowed to trickle. Which is why many investors are turning to Australian shares for their reliable dividend income and relatively high dividend yields. The aver...

Australians delight in their nation punching above its weight. But there's little to celebrate in being the world's silver medallists;  we're a nose behind the Swiss when it comes to household debt. i With the present-buying, holiday-taking season nigh, millions of Australians could soon find themselves sinking even deeper in the red. Older readers may remember a time when credit was hard to come by and people were cautious about going into debt. But those days are long g...