In keeping with our commitment to the community, Overells has recently donated to Cystic Fibrosis Queensland (CFQ) - a charity much underfunded by the government and, accordingly, in desperate need of assistance.  Currently CFQ receive only 46c per client per day from the government - what is really needed is at least $3.74 per client per day!

Founded in 1960 by concerned parents of children with cystic fibrosis, CFQ’s mission is “to provide the education, support and services that empower people in the cystic fibrosis community to realise their full potential.”

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that is screened and detected at birth.  It causes thick mucous secretions, predominantly in the lung and pancreas, which lead to chronic lung infections and digestive and absorption difficulties. It is a lifelong condition with no cure but modern treatments such as physiotherapy, antibiotics and digestive enzymes have increased the life expectancy and quality of life of sufferers.

Some facts about cystic fibrosis include:

• Over 3000 Australians have it
• More than 1 million Australians carry the gene
• A baby is born every 4 days with it
• 80% of parents were unaware they were carriers of the disease
• Average life expectancy is 37 years
• There is no cure

It was not hard for Overells staff to choose where this month’s donation would go.  Cystic Fibrosis Queensland was a clear winner!

Although not one that appears on the balance sheet, good health is your most important asset! We are all fortunate enough here to have it in abundance and are excited to make a contribution to those who don’t.

Written by Jessica-Bell Allen

I read in the Financial Review a page one headline to the effect "trusts are under attack from ATO".

We normally get our tax news from a variety of subscriptions rather than the Fin Review, so I read on with interest thinking we had missed something.  After all, there has been plenty of action on attacking trusts in the last year or two, so another one should not be a surprise.

The thrust of the article was that capital gains made in trusts may not attract the 50% discount that normally applies if the investment has been held for more than 12 months.  Surprised and a bit alarmed, I went to the ATO Ruling that was referred to, only to discover that there were no new principles espoused at all.  In essence, the Ruling was saying that if eg shares had been acquired for profit making by resale, then the 50% discount would not apply.  Now this is  a well known principle and applies regardless of the owner of the investment.

Conclusion?  Don't get your tax advice from newspaper headlines.  Surprise, surprise - they may be there to create a story, rather than impart genuine information!

Written by David Overell 

When performance evaluation time comes around, managers more often than not ask employees to write a self-evaluation critiquing how they think they are doing. However, according to a recent article in “The Australian Financial Review”, written by Dick Grote, although this may seem like a good idea, it may not always be the case.

Theoretically, getting an employee to give a self-rating on their performance gives managers extra information to use in their evaluations and also gives employees a preview of what they should expect from their review. This method can actually “create a false impression of what performance appraisal is”. A performance review can be defined as a meeting where a manager provides their opinion on the quality of an employee’s work. This review meeting “is a discussion, not a negotiation” and this is where self-appraisals can encourage misunderstandings.

Dick’s research for his book “How to be Good at performance Appraisals”, proved that individuals are “notoriously inaccurate” when it comes to assessing their own performance and that “the poorer the performer, the higher (and more inaccurate) the self-appraisal”.   Incompetent employees are blind when it comes to assessing the distinction between a good and a bad performance. During Dick’s studies, a senior executive described to him his company’s practice of using a forced-ranking system to identify the A,B and C performers. This executive said, “The A’s are afraid they’ll be considered B’s, the B’s are scared they’ll be seen as C’s, and all the C’s are convinced that they’re A players.”

Managers are the most accurate assessors as they provide a generally unbiased evaluation of the job their employees are doing, the positives and the negatives, which can be something the employees don’t do themselves.

If it is company policy to conduct self-appraisals, there is a better way to go about it. First of all, the manager can explain the main purpose of these self-evaluations is a way to gauge how the employee is performing from their own point of view and that it will be only one of the data sources used to prepare their actual performance evaluation. Secondly, you should ask employees to fill these appraisals out well in advance of the actual review meeting, so it can be used by the manager to prepare for it.

Written by Bronte Packer-Hill

For the past two years we have been using Praemium, a portfolio admin service, which allows us to efficiently and accurately process a client’s portfolio for year end tax purposes.

Key advantages include:

•    fully automated corporate actions to handle situations such as demergers and consolidations
•    automatic broker feeds and upload function to record buys and sells efficiently

If you have a portfolio which consists mainly of term deposits, listed shares or other equity investments, then Praemium portfolio reports may well assist with your investment performance reporting and management.

Praemium has another online feature, V Wrap Investor, which allows access to reports and graphs of:

•    daily trade info
•    portfolio performance
•    performance for any listed security
•    estimated dividends/distributions
•    market activity showing top twenty upward moving securities
•    broker trades analysis by security

If you have a portfolio already set up with us, it is free to access once we have given you a log in.  Watchlists and alerts can also be set up.

So please feel free to contact us if this interests you.

(download)

Click here to download:

tech-highlight-praemium-ItwCDdIGIGDpwerAdBFJ.zip (403 KB)

Written by Carinne Foong  

The ATO has warned you may get stung by any of a number of refund scam emails currently circulating.

These emails claim to come from the ATO and offer a tax refund.  Generally, they link to a bogus ATO website asking for personal and credit card details.  The emails may differ in their appearance and level of sophistication but will generally state that you are eligible for a refund and instruct you to click on a link to submit a form to receive it.  

One version of this scam contains an attachment infected with a virus.  Typically, you will be asked to complete a form or click a link allowing scammers to steal your information or infect your computer with malware.  Malware (short for malicious software), consists of programming designed to disrupt or deny operation and to gather information which leads to a loss of privacy or exploitation, gain unauthorised access to system resources, and other abusive behaviour.

Be aware that the ATO SMS and email messages will never include, or ask you to provide, personal information and do not require any form of reply.

And you are not safe on the phone either!  

From time to time the ATO may contact you by phone but you should be wary of unsolicited phone calls claiming to be from the ATO and offering you a tax refund.  Increasingly these scams use names and addresses that have some correlation to actual ATO officers and buildings.  If in doubt about the authenticity of a call that you receive from the ATO we recommend that you contact the ATO on one of their publicly listed numbers to verify the legitimacy of the call.

Under no circumstances should you give personal information including credit card or banking details. Anyone who has received a suspicious phone call or email should contact the ATO immediately.

Written by Cherie Powell

With all those Windows 7 ads out there, it’s no surprise that some of our clients are upgrading their software.  What has been a surprise though is that various programs have not transferred properly! 

Accordingly, I have asked our IT guru, Damon Fealy of Veracity, how clients can ensure their upgrade is successful

Damon’s first recommendation is to always ensure that you backup your data and, if you have an IT person, give them a call before finalising any purchases.

The most common upgrade he is doing at the moment is a migration from a Windows XP machine to a new Windows 7 machine and he has provided a guide from Microsoft on how to do the upgrade.  Click here to view the processes, noting we can’t take any responsibility for the information and it should not be taken as advice (as virtually every computer configuration will be slightly different).  BUT it is the Microsoft process so one would hope that it’s accurate!

In addition to the above, I would also suggest making a note of the programs that you have in your ‘start menu’ and ensure that, at the end of the upgrade, they are all still there.

Taya

Here at Overells we place great importance on developing a strong sense of community, not only within the office amongst our team and our clients, but also externally.  With this, we regularly donate to charities chosen by our team as a group.

Locally, we provide pro-bono services for “Specialised Programs And Community Endeavours” – a local independent community centre for people with special needs.  We also host an annual “Biggest Morning Tea” and attend ‘fun run’ events that raise funds for charities.  Our staff are also active in personal donations, including ‘working’ for charities, and donating blood.

At our last management meeting we decided to donate to the appeal for East Africa, where across Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti, 13.3 million people (two thirds of the population of Australia) including over 4.14 million children, are affected by devastating droughts, famine and conflict.

The scale of this crisis is almost incomprehensible to us and serves as a reminder of the privileged position we are all in.  Although devastated by a disaster of the opposite extreme with the recent Brisbane floods, our loss, if any, was limited mostly to material things. In Africa now loss is measured in lives.  Just as many of us extended a helping hand to our local flood victims, we wanted to reach further and offer aid to those in Africa where such local help is non-existent but even more desperately needed.

Sally, one of our cadets here, was the one to put the idea forward to donate to the famine in East Africa, commenting that we too often get carried away with what is going on here when far worse is happening on the other side of the world.

Another one of our cadets, Jess, was also strongly in support of the donation to Africa, having visited Tanzania early last year to volunteer with the medical checks at the School of St Judes, an experience from which she developed a profound admiration and liking for the African people.

In addition to this donation to UNICEF, we continue to support Yeasmin (a girl from Bangaldesh) through World Vision to ensure our community spirit is maintained on a global basis.

Jessica Bell-Allen

I recently read an interesting article in The Financial Review BOSS magazine (Vol 12 published in June 2011) about changing telephone technology.
 
Rachel Botsman discusses the future and the value of your mobile phone being an interactive device covering three key areas:

1. Payments
2. Banking
3. Commerce

PayPal transactions via mobile have increased from 1% in 2010 to over 11% over the past year.

The NAB predict that with its current rate of mobile banking growth, by 2014 internet logins via mobile devices will exceed desktop logins which is being driven by ease, speed & choice.

The head of PayPal Australia claims your phone is more secure than your wallet – because of GPS tracking and the ability to lock the phone remotely (with the overriding comment that most smart phones offer this security but you need to activate it).

Comments were made regarding a number of issues including:

• Real time spending visualisation – ready access to your bank statement
• Wave & Pay – wave your phone across a store reader to make payment
• Bump Payments – e.g. one person pays the restaurant bill and the others reimburse via the bump of telephones
• Mobile phone credit billing
• Text payments
• Phones as credit card processors
• Remote cheque deposits

Open the attachment for the full article.

Peter Flemming

Click here to download:

Pay_as_you_go.pdf (5.85 MB)

(download)

Click here to download:

Pay_as_you_go.pdf (5.85 MB)