Whether as an employee, a consultant or in practice, professionals face unique business and wealth creation challenges. As practising professionals with decades of experience, we are perfectly placed to help you achieve your goals.

At Baumgartners, we understand that all our clients are unique.  We recognise their strengths, and use our cutting edge expertise to help achieve their goals.  We work with professionals across a broad range of industries, and at every stage of their professional lives, to optimise their taxation profiles, and to maximise and protect their wealth.

Taxation

Professionals are understandably concerned with optimising their taxation outcomes.  Whilst there is often a focus on income tax, there are many other taxes that a professional might encounter in their day-to-day business life including GST, Fringe Benefits Tax, Stamp Duties and Payroll taxes.  We are experts in ensuring our clients’ affairs are structured so as to minimise risk and their tax burden.  We continuously invest in our team so that they are always at the cutting edge of tax planning.

Business Structuring

Correctly structuring our clients’ business affairs is critical to achieving their taxation, asset protection, succession, and wealth creation objectives.  Flexibility is also important in order to adapt to changing business and economic environments.  Structuring is an area that requires considerable expertise and experience to deliver the right result.  Our team has considerable experience structuring professional businesses across a range of industries.

Management Consulting

Do you have the right information on a regular and timely basis to make the best decisions in your professional practice?  We help our business clients to implement best practice accounting and management reporting systems using our internally developed checklists and processes.  We help our clients to identify and track Key Performance Indicators, implement appropriate internal checks and controls, undertake financial analysis of their business on a regular basis and assist in the budgeting of cash-flows and profitability.

Self-Managed Superannuation

Superannuation planning generally, and SMSFs in particular, are an area of expertise at Baumgartners.  Having one of the largest SMSF audit teams in the country helps ensure that our clients receive the best advice and access to the latest superannuation strategies.  We have expertise in assisting clients with purchasing or transfer of business properties into their SMSF, borrowing to acquire assets within super, super splitting on separation, implementing pension strategies and superannuation estate planning.

Case Study

A medical specialist, new in practice, required structuring advice, taxation advice and internal accounting support.

After completing his training and residency, a medical specialist (gastroenterologist) was entering practice for the first time within a shared medical services centre.  He required our advice on how to best structure his practice for taxation, commercial and wealth protection purposes and assistance in implementing a suitable internal accounting system.

Our client was a specialist medical practitioner, new to the world of business, accounting and taxation.

We assisted him in the following matters:

  • Selection of an appropriate practice operating structure.  In this instance, the optimal structure was a small proprietary company which offered the benefit of limited liability.
  • Setup of a service trust which provided the primary trading entity with support in the form of room rental, administrative staff and office equipment and was able to distribute its profits each year to other members of the specialist’s family.
  • Advice surrounding the employment of staff including PAYG withholding; Workcover and superannuation guarantee requirements.
  • Assistance with the setup of a Self-Managed Superannuation Fund, into which he transferred his existing superannuation benefits, to enable a greater degree of control over what would likely become one of his most valuable assets in future.  It was also a factor that it would likely be possible to use the SMSF to acquire premises for the practice in future.
  • Recommending, assisting in setting up, and providing training for an internal accounting system.  In this instance Xero was chosen.  Xero is a cutting-edge cloud based system which allows for remote access to the practice financial information by our firm and direct bank feeds so that transactions are automatically entered into the system.

As his assets grow into the future, further areas of support have been identified as including:

  • Assistance with estate planning, in conjunction with his legal adviser, to ensure assets and wealth pass to his intended beneficiaries in the most tax effective manner.
  • Appropriate structures, outside the practice structure, for investment once the family’s mortgage has been reduced.

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