Intuit QuickBooks has released new research highlighting the stress and barriers Australians face during tax time. The nationally representative survey of 1,018 Australians found that almost one in three (31%) find the end of the financial year and tax submission time to be stressful, with 19% of Aussies preferring to pick up their pooch’s poop than complete their tax return.

Laughter is a source of relief

The research also revealed that laughter can be the best medicine during stressful times, with nearly 96% agreeing with this sentiment for reasons including it makes them relax (56%), it is effective (48%), and it reminds them that everything “will be okay” (47%).

Moreover, almost all (98%) of Aussies who find completing their tax return difficult agreed that laughter can be the best medicine during stressful times. The main outlets for Aussies stressed out by tax time include relaxing through humour (66%), spending time with family and/or friends (51%), and enjoying a hobby (49%).

Of the Australians who disagreed that laughter was a good form of relief, 42% said they prefer other outlets and 4% would prefer to cry.

Aussies would rather avoid tax time

Only three in 10 (29%) Australians enjoy working on their tax returns. When asked to choose, the majority of the nation would prefer to participate in other activities over completing their tax return, including cleaning up dog poop (19%), making small talk with an unpleasant neighbour (18%), sitting in the middle seat on a long-haul flight (17%), and getting a filling at the dentist (16%). 

One-third (32%) of Australians surveyed find it difficult to complete their tax returns. Men are more likely to struggle completing their tax return (37% compared to 28%) and be more stressed by the end of the financial year and tax submission process (37% compared to 27%).

The biggest barriers for those who find the tax return process challenging are a lack of knowledge and understanding of the correct process (51%), lack of motivation to complete it (39%), and lack of organisation (36%). The research shows a need for more financial literacy amongst women, as they are more likely to have a lack of knowledge and understanding of the correct process (62% vs 43%). They’re also more likely to not know where to start (29%) compared to men (11%).

Of the Australians who don’t find it difficult to complete their tax return, 39% said it is because their accountant or tax consultant does everything for them, 13% said they love tax, and 6% admitted to being in denial.

EOFY impact on Australian small businesses

The majority of Australians (62%) believe small business owners should have more support to help them through the end of financial year stress. These Aussies believe the initiatives that would most benefit small businesses during tax time include free business coaching (61%), free government advice (59%), subsidised access to accountants/bookkeepers (48%), and free access to mental health support (41%).

Making tax time less taxing

Australian consumers and small businesses can make tax time less taxing by working with trusted accountants and bookkeepers, according to Damien Greathead, Accountant & Advisor Lead at Intuit QuickBooks Australia.

“Aussie small businesses have had a tough few years and whether you’re a tradie, hairdresser or fast-paced startup, we know that tax time can add significant stress and mental load. We want to reduce the burden and stress of tax-time.”

“Working with an accountant or bookkeeper who uses tools like Intuit QuickBooks, or even using the tool yourself can help small business owners reduce stress and get time back in their day to focus on unwinding with some comedy, seeing friends and family or pursuing their hobbies,’” Greathead said.

Rachel Clements, Director of Psychological Services, Centre for Corporate Health said tax time can be an incredibly demanding period, often causing a great deal of stress.

“During this time, reaching out to a professional and your loved ones for emotional support is crucial. Sharing your worries with family and friends can provide solace, and discussing your concerns can offer valuable insights and help put things into perspective,” Clements said.

“Taking breaks and time to switch off and recharge is also important to tackle these often stressful times in the right mindset. If you find yourself excessively concerned about your stress levels, it is advisable to seek the guidance of a mental health professional. Consulting with an expert can assist you in navigating any underlying issues before they escalate into more significant problems.”

Logitech International has announced Rally Bar Huddle, a premium all-in-one appliance-based video bar for small rooms, and the newest addition to Logitech’s family of conference cameras. Designed to deliver equitable video conferencing meetings with ease, Rally Bar Huddle is quick to set up, simple to manage, and easy to integrate with Tap IP through CollabOS.

As companies redesign their office spaces to create more collaboration areas for their hybrid workforce, huddle rooms have become more popular. According to research firm Futuresource, 68%* of companies plan to invest in AV technology for small meeting rooms and huddle spaces.

“Huddle rooms are popping up faster than companies can video-enable them,” said Scott Wharton, general manager of Logitech B2B. “We designed Rally Bar Huddle from the ground up to have the optimal AI functionality for modern equitable meetings while coming in at a price point that is affordable for every single huddle room out there.”

Rally Bar Huddle is designed for rooms up to six people to ensure every participant is seen and heard clearly. Built-in AI video intelligence and 4K image quality welcome remote participants to the conversation. The redesigned ported-audio system makes Rally Bar Huddle two times louder than Logitech MeetUp. Advanced sound pickup via six beamforming mics and AI-based noise suppression creates a natural meeting experience for remote employees.

Ongoing software improvements make it smarter through regular updates that add advanced features like RightSight 2. With RightSight 2, teams get access to AI features such as Speaker View, which detects and shows the active speaker while also showing the entire room, and Grid View, which gives each participant equal representation by detecting faces and zooming in on each person to give them their own frame; plus integrations with Zoom Rooms Smart Gallery, Microsoft IntelliFrame and others.

Rally Bar Huddle can be deployed in three ways. It works with both a dedicated Windows or ChromeOS computer; in BYOD mode; or runs supported video conferencing applications on the device in appliance mode without an external computer. Rally Bar Huddle works with leading video conferencing platforms, including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet.

IT teams can take Rally Bar Huddle out of the box and have the meeting room up and running in minutes. After setup, IT teams can monitor room health, deploy updates, and modify settings through single, cloud-based Logitech Sync. And with Sync Insights, teams can assess how meeting spaces are used over time.

Organisations can customise Rally Bar Huddle for specialty settings or to suit their decor best. An off-white fabric cover provides an alternative to the default graphite, and the easy-clean cover helps keep the video bar clean in healthcare and education environments.

Pricing and Availability Rally Bar Huddle

Rally Bar Huddle will be available to ANZ in July 2023 through authorised sellers and logitech.com/en-au

The Rally Bar Huddle Standalone has a suggested retail price of $3,099 AUD. The Rally Bar Huddle Bundle has a suggested retail price of $4,029.95 AUD. RightSight 2 features will be available in 2023.

Adobe has unveiled Generative Fill in Photoshop, bringing Adobe Firefly generative AI capabilities directly into design workflows. The new Firefly-powered Generative Fill is the world’s first co-pilot in creative and design workflows, giving users a magical new way to work by easily adding, extending or removing content from images non-destructively in seconds using simple text prompts. This beta release of Photoshop is Adobe’s first Creative Cloud application to deeply integrate Firefly with an exciting roadmap ahead that will transform workflows across Creative Cloud, Document Cloud, Experience Cloud and Adobe Express.

Adobe has over a decade-long history of AI innovation, delivering hundreds of intelligent capabilities through Adobe Sensei into applications that hundreds of millions of people rely upon. Features like Neural Filters in Photoshop, Content Aware Fill in After Effects, Customer AI in Adobe Experience Platform and Liquid Mode in Acrobat empower Adobe customers to create, edit, measure, optimise and review billions of pieces of content. Firefly, Adobe’s family of creative generative AI models, now brings even more precision, power, speed and ease directly into workflows where content is created or modified. 

Firefly, Adobe’s family of creative generative AI models, launched six weeks ago with an initial focus on the generation of images and text effects. It has quickly became one of the most successful beta launches in Adobe’s history, with beta users generating over 100 million assets. Since its launch, Firefly has been expanded to support vector recoloring and generative fill. Firefly is the only AI service that generates commercially viable, professional quality content and is designed to be embedded directly into creators’ workflows. Firefly’s first model is trained on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content and other public domain content without copyright restrictions. Enterprises will be able to extend Firefly with their own creative collateral in order to generate content that includes the company’s images, vectors and brand language. The integration of Firefly across Adobe Experience Cloud applications will allow marketing organisations to use Firefly to accelerate their content supply chain production.

“By integrating Firefly directly into workflows as a creative co-pilot, Adobe is accelerating ideation, exploration and production for all of our customers,” said Ashley Still, senior vice president, Digital Media at Adobe. “Generative Fill combines the speed and ease of generative AI with the power and precision of Photoshop, empowering customers to bring their visions to life at the speed of their imaginations.”

Supercharging Creativity and Design

The deep integration of next-generation AI across Photoshop’s core tools uniquely enables new creative workflows that supercharge ideation with precise creative control for production quality content creation.

Generative Fill automatically matches perspective, lighting and style of images to enable users achieve astounding results while reducing tedious tasks. Generative Fill expands creative expression and productivity and enhances creative confidence of creators with the use of natural language and concepts to generate digital content in seconds:

• Powered by Firefly: Firefly is designed to generate images that are safe for commercial use and is trained on Adobe Stock’s hundreds of millions of professional-grade, licensed, high-resolution images, helping ensure Firefly won’t generate content based on other peoples’ or brands’ intellectual property (IP).
• Magically leap from idea to image, with simple text prompts: Add, extend or remove content from images to achieve astounding results. 
• Edit non-destructively: Create newly generated content in generative layers, enabling you to rapidly iterate through a myriad of creative possibilities and reverse the effects when you want, without impacting your original image.
• Create at a transformative rate: Experiment with off-the-wall ideas, ideate different concepts and produce boundless variations of high-quality content as fast as you can type.
• Available as a web tool: Generative Fill is also available as a new module in the Firefly beta for users interested in testing the new capabilities on the web.

As a trusted partner to individuals and businesses of all sizes, Adobe develops and deploys all AI capabilities with a customer-centric approach and according to its AI Ethics principles to ensure content and data transparency. Generative Fill supports Content Credentials, serving an essential role in ensuring people know whether a piece of content was created by a human, AI-generated or AI-edited. Content Credentials are like “nutrition labels” for digital content and remain associated with content wherever it is used, published or stored, enabling proper attribution and helping consumers make informed decisions about digital content. The technology was developed by the Content Authenticity Initiative, which Adobe founded and recently surpassed 1,000 members.

Additional New Innovations in Photoshop

In addition, Adobe updated Photoshop today with new capabilities that enhance and accelerate creative workflows. New Adjustment Presets, Contextual Task Bar, Remove Tool and Enhanced Gradients empower users to make complex edits and create unique designs while saving time. Read more here. 

Availability 

Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature is available in the desktop beta app today and will be generally available in the second half of 2023. Generative Fill is also available today as a module within the Firefly beta app.

Businesses will be able to maximise their cash flow thanks to a new Commonwealth Bank innovative short notice deposit account that allows customers to earn higher interest at the same time as being able to withdraw funds with just 48 hours or seven days’ notice.

The new Capital Growth Account will offer an interest rate of 0.75%/1.5% higher than an equivalent at-call savings account and customers will incur no loss of interest or fees if they withdraw funds from their accounts having given the appropriate notice over their chosen short-term notice periods. Comparable accounts in the market have a notice period of at least 31 days.

Many businesses hold cash for lump sum payments for specific periods of time, especially to cover tax payments at the end of the financial year. CBA data also shows that many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have largely maintained cash reserves after the Covid-19 pandemic, with customers currently holding 39% more in average deposit balances than in January 2020.

Flexible notice accounts such as the new Capital Growth Account give business owners the ability to earn extra interest like a term deposit account on these funds without the same restrictions on withdrawals.

“We know cash flow is key for our customers, especially in the current economic environment,” said Mike Vacy-Lyle, Group Executive of CBA’s Business Bank.

“This means customers don’t need to trade-off higher interest accounts with the requirement to provide a longer notice period or lock away funds in fixed term and wait for them to mature ahead of accessing them.”

CBA is the first Australian bank to offer a sustainability action tool to help small business customers improve environmental outcomes while enhancing performance and reducing costs.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA) is launching a new tool to help small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to embed sustainability into their operations.

CBA’s new Sustainability Action Tool provides insights into actions businesses can take to reduce their environmental impacts and lower costs.

New CBA research shows that the cost of becoming sustainable (61 per cent), finding sustainable suppliers (30%) and a lack of time and resources (28 per cent) are the top pain points for SMEs seeking to embed sustainability into their business model.

The CBA Sustainability Action Tool is designed to help small business customers identify sustainable choices for their processes and operations and provide them a selection of resources and actions based on their responses to a few simple questions.

The tool will initially focus on energy, transport, and waste management and will be expanded in the coming months to include information on other sustainability topics such as supply chain management, product design and wellbeing.

Kerryn Saward, CBA General Manager Everyday Business Banking said: “It’s clear small business owners have a strong interest in sustainability and are already implementing sustainable practices in their business.  

With merchants estimated to suffer more than US$48 billion in eCommerce fraud globally in 2023 – 22% of that in Asia[1] – Mastercard has announced the expansion of its partnership with Vesta, the global leader in payment fraud protection. Building on the two firms’ existing fraud detection collaboration, Mastercard will be integrating Vesta’s iron-clad Payment Guarantee™ and Payment Protect risk scoring solution into its Mastercard Payment Gateway Services (MGPS) platform. Starting in the second half of 2023, MPGS customers in the Asia Pacific region will be given optional access to both fraud fighting solutions which would offer total protection for their eCommerce transactions and take their cost of fraud to zero.

With 200+ global acquirer connections, and the ability to seamlessly process safe, secure payments in 170+ currencies across 30+ payment methods online, in-person or in-app, MPGS is a powerful omnichannel payments platform that enables merchants – large and small – to easily accept a payment from anywhere in the world, helping businesses to grow and expand into new markets.

“To provide MPGS customers with the toughest, most impenetrable fraud protection available, Mastercard is committed to nurturing strategic partnerships with the most trusted service providers in the payments, technology and security industries – like Vesta,” said Sandeep Malhotra, Executive Vice President, Products & Innovation, Asia Pacific, Mastercard. “Through this first-of-its-kind solution combining the scale and reach of MPGS with Vesta’s unrivalled fraud protection powers in a single integration, merchants can enjoy the peace of mind – and extra time in their day – that comes from knowing that their eCommerce transactions are fully protected from fraud and financial risk.”  

With Vesta Payment Guarantee™, transactions are 100% guaranteed against fraud. This means that if a fraudulent order approved by Vesta’s rigorous risk scoring engine makes it through the checkout process, Vesta will absorb the full cost of the transaction. By eliminating a merchant’s risk and liability from fraudulent chargebacks, it takes their cost of fraud to zero, letting them focus on growing their online business instead of worrying about trying to stop fraud attacks themselves.

From the moment a customer selects “Place order” to the final order confirmation, Payment Guarantee™ is fast, frictionless and accurate, analyzing thousands of individual signals across the user journey to uncover fraud patterns while simultaneously increasing approvals of legitimate online sales, driving revenue growth.

“Our promise: Every approved transaction is covered by Vesta’s 100% fraud chargeback guarantee. If we’re wrong, it’s on us.  We are excited to enable all MPGS customers and their businesses to focus on what matters – growing sales without the fear of fraud,” said Shabab Muhaddes, SVP and GM APAC for Vesta.

With new and emerging ways to make money, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is reminding taxpayers to consider if they are ‘in business’ and to declare all income when lodging their tax return this year.

Record numbers of taxpayers are now working multiple jobs or supplementing their income with ‘side hustles’ or ‘gig’ economy activities, and it’s important everyone pays the right amount of tax.

ATO Assistant Commissioner Tim Loh said if you earn money through continuous and repeated activities for the purpose of making a profit, then it’s likely you’re running a business.

‘While there are always new and different ways to make money, the tax obligations remain the same. Don’t fall into the trap of forgetting to include all your income thinking the ATO won’t notice,’ Mr Loh says.

‘You also need to declare any additional income earned through that side hustle’, Mr Loh said.

Businesses have a range of obligations depending on their structure and turnover, including registering for an Australian business number, keeping the right records and lodging the right type of tax return. They may also have to register for goods and services tax (GST).

The ATO is running an advertising campaign to remind taxpayers about their obligations if their side hustle is generating income.

‘With tax time just around the corner, if you are bolstering your income with new activities, make sure all your records are up-to-scratch. This could be anything from animal breeding to earning income through digital platforms, such as ride share or food delivery, or even online content creation, like social media influencers,’ he said.

‘If your home has become more like a warehouse and is stocked to the hilt with goods to sell, then you may in fact be running a business’

‘If you’re running boot camp sessions, in addition to your 9-5 job, well, this is a side hustle, and you need to declare all income to the ATO’

‘If you’re an online content creator earning money or receiving gifts, you’re also likely to be running a business and there are tax obligations you need to comply with.’

Mr Loh acknowledged ‘sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re ‘in business’ and we recognise not everything you do to make money is considered a business. The ATO won’t consider activities as ‘in business’ when they are a one-off transaction (unless it is the first step in carrying on a business or intended to be repeated) or an activity from which you don’t seek to make a profit.’

The ATO has sophisticated data-matching and analytical tools to identify taxpayers that under-report their income. From 1 July 2023, the Sharing Economy Reporting Regime will commence and the ATO will receive data from more electronic distribution platforms. The ATO will match this information with the information taxpayers provide on their tax return or activity statement to identify income that has not been included.

‘It doesn’t matter whether you are carrying on a business or simply earning additional income through a digital platform, such as a website or even an app, you must keep accurate records of your income and include it in your tax return,’ Mr Loh said.

‘Every dollar dodged is a dollar that can’t be used for vital services like health and education’

‘The ATO needs to ensure there is a level playing field for everyone, with no unfair advantages,’ Mr Loh said.

If you are finding your feet in business, the ATO is here to support you. The ATO has new to business resources, webinars and tools to help you kick-off on the right foot. You can also talk to a registered tax professional.

Case study: Hayley heads off-track for fun, but on-the right-track for business

Hayley works in hospitality at night and spends most days fishing or four-wheel driving. She decides to start developing ‘how-to’ YouTube videos when fishing and four-wheel driving. Hayley’s online following is rapidly increasing, and she’s now earning money from her videos.

With the growing online interest, Hayley cuts back her hospitality work and starts to invest more effort into her videos. Hayley sets up a production schedule that sets out the type of content she will produce on a weekly basis, buys equipment to improve her production quality, completes an online video editing course to improve her editing skills and records all expenses from her content creation activity.

Hayley wants to know if her side hustle activities are a business. She looks at all her activities together and determines she is running a business because she:

■       intends to make a profit to supplement her salary and wage income

■       set up a regular schedule for these activities

■       operates in a business-like way (she has a plan and system for making a profit).

Case study: Byron’s bolstering biceps becomes a business

Byron works an office job Monday to Friday and runs a bootcamp on the weekend. It started as a free weekly fitness session Byron organised because he loves exercise. Byron invited friends and members of his local community to meet each Saturday morning and do weights and cardio together. No payment was expected, but there was an optional donation into a kitty. Byron would generally buy equipment for the group with the money from the kitty. Byron isn’t a qualified personal trainer (PT), but due to the growing interest in his sessions, he has decided to start studying PT. At this stage, Byron’s activities are considered a hobby because he:

■       doesn’t complete the activities with the intention to make a profit

■       isn’t qualified

■       isn’t running the activities in a business-like manner.

However, once Byron becomes a licensed PT, he starts running more sessions and charging customers a set rate for the sessions. He also buys an insurance policy and arranges marketing activities to promote his sessions. Byron has now changed the intention of his activities and he is now considered to be running a business.

Pay rise expectations have skyrocketed according to a new survey of over 1,400 Australian workers. The ADP® Research Institute’s People at Work 2023: A Global Workforce View, found that in Australia, more than half (58%) of workers are anticipating a salary increase in the next 12 months – with an additional 26% expecting a promotion. 

On average, almost half of Australian workers (49%) expect an uplift in pay of up to 6%, with over one in 10 (13%) expecting to receive a pay rise of 10% or more. 

Alarmingly, almost half of Australian workers (49%) feel that they are underpaid in their current roles and over half (58%) are not satisfied with their salary. 

The findings come amid the ongoing cost of living crisis and as workers in many countries demonstrate a willingness to take industrial action in order to force their employers to be more generous on pay and conditions.

The desire for a pay rise is strongest amongst millennials, with two-thirds (66%) of 25-34 year olds expecting a pay rise in the next 12 months. Amongst industries, IT/Telecommunications (70%), construction (67%), and manufacturing (66%) have the highest rates of expecting a pay rise.

Kylie Baullo, Managing Director ANZ at ADP, comments: “Employers have the difficult task of weighing up the expectation for higher pay against their own challenges around rising costs and tightening profit margins. Workers are confident that they will get a pay rise from their current company – but if not, there’s a strong sense that they’ll be able to secure one by moving jobs. The implications for talent acquisition and retention are substantial.”

“Employers who aren’t in a financial position to offer decent pay rises need to carefully consider the risks and start thinking creatively about how to retain staff in other ways, such as offering workers more value from their jobs through skill development and training, as well as increased flexibility.”

Mrs Baullo says, “With workers and working families experiencing the highest increases in cost of living registered over the past two decades, it’s no surprise employees are expecting their pay to keep up with the ongoing crisis.”

“Workers across lower and middle-income bands have found that their disposable incomes have been severely hit. Spending on essentials, let alone luxuries, is being tightly squeezed as they grapple with rising rents, increasing interest rates and escalating food and energy bills. Even if inflation has peaked, it looks like it will take some time to return to more comfortable levels.”

Demands for higher pay come after just over six in 10 Australian workers (65%) were given a pay rise last year. Those pay rises averaged 5%. Given that the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) global inflation forecast for 2022 was 8.8%, even the increase in pay equates to a pay cut in real-terms for the majority of Australians.

The report explores employees’ attitudes towards the current world of work and what they expect and hope for from the workplace of the future.