ACC weekly loss of earnings

[Shaun Harris]

New Zealand small business owners. VERY IMPORTANT- If you are not registered as a LAQC-Loss Attributing Qualifying Company, you will NOT be entitled to ACC weekly compensation if you are injured and cannot work to earn your money. My original accountant had not set me up as one, ( Not being an accountant I did not know these details) so whilst I could not work for 4.5 years, I only recieved $115-00 per week due to a seperate contract I had done for an enginerring firm prior to my injuries.

Just a heads up

[mashman]

Bludger. You should have worked from home, a sex line perhaps.

[Shaun Harris]

Bludger. You should have worked from home, a sex line perhaps.



lol, yea I do feel bad about it after paying my tax for years an years haha NOT!

[mashman]

lol, yea I do feel bad about it after paying my tax for years an years haha NOT!

You're obviously not thinking about the children.

[p.dath]

New Zealand small business owners. VERY IMPORTANT- If you are not registered as a LAQC-Loss Attributing Qualifying Company, you will NOT be entitled to ACC weekly compensation if you are injured and cannot work to earn your money. My original accountant had not set me up as one, ( Not being an accountant I did not know these details) so whilst I could not work for 4.5 years, I only recieved $115-00 per week due to a seperate contract I had done for an enginerring firm prior to my injuries.

Just a heads up

LAQC's no longer exist in practicality, and only suitable for the start-up period when a company is making a loss. After that you can't be an LAQC any more. And if your company is not making regular losses you can't be an LAQC anyway.

Personally, I am a PAYE employee of my own company. Nice and simple then. You are treated like an employee in most aspects of the law and Government policy.

[HenryDorsetCase]

LAQC's no longer exist in practicality, and only suitable for the start-up period when a company is making a loss. After that you can't be an LAQC any more. And if your company is not making regular losses you can't be an LAQC anyway.

Personally, I am a PAYE employee of my own company. Nice and simple then. You are treated like an employee in most aspects of the law and Government policy.

The LAQC regime was replaced by the Look Through Company regime in (IIRC) 2009. there are important functional and tax differences and according to a CA I know, it makes the LTC pointless in a lot of cases due to the extra compliance cost.

[scott411]

LAQC's no longer exist in practicality, and only suitable for the start-up period when a company is making a loss. After that you can't be an LAQC any more. And if your company is not making regular losses you can't be an LAQC anyway.

Personally, I am a PAYE employee of my own company. Nice and simple then. You are treated like an employee in most aspects of the law and Government policy.

same way i have always been set up, makes it a lot easier with ACC etc, and also helps somewhat from getting a scary tax bill at the end of the year,

also, if you are self employed and unreplaceable, it might be worth looking into income protection insurance, but be carefull, as alot of packages do not cover injuries while motorcycle racing

[Shaun Harris]

unfortunately I Paid an accountant who made a few mistakes with setting me up and did not know any better myself.

[HenryDorsetCase]

unfortunately I Paid an accountant who made a few mistakes with setting me up and did not know any better myself.

these guys are the best ACC lawyers in the country. And therefore IN THE WORLD.

http://www.jmlaw.co.nz/

might be worth a talk?

[haydes55]

Talking of loss making companies.... There is a franchise company in the bay that contracts the installation of their products and servicing to another company.... This company is owned by the same man and charges sweet fuck all for their work and makes huge losses every year, so the government give tax rebates and lower levies.

[Mike.Gayner]

LAQC's don't exist any more, and you have massively over-simplified the situation. If you're self-employed via a closely held company you NEED to talk to your accountant about ACC, because it needs to be structured in such a way that you'll be entitled to a claim. Too many accountants think first about how they can minimise ACC bills (often at clients' instructions) without consideration for what happens in an accident.

It's reasonably likely that OP asked their accountant to do something to reduce their ACC bill some time in the past, not considering what may happen if they need to make a claim. I've seen it many times.

Source: I'm an accountant.

[Mike.Gayner]

Talking of loss making companies.... There is a franchise company in the bay that contracts the installation of their products and servicing to another company.... This company is owned by the same man and charges sweet fuck all for their work and makes huge losses every year, so the government give tax rebates and lower levies.

The profit has to go somewhere, so unless they're just lying to IRD, they're still paying taxes in one entity or another.

Despite popular belief, NZ has a very solid, very simple tax system in which the only reliable way to avoid paying taxes is to lie to IRD (which is a criminal offence).

[Mike.Gayner]

Personally, I am a PAYE employee of my own company. Nice and simple then. You are treated like an employee in most aspects of the law and Government policy.

This is the simplest and best approach. Unfortunately many small business owners are convinced they can lower their tax and ACC obligations through a series of complex structures. In the end they only wind up reducing their entitlements and increasing their accounting fees.

[Shaun Harris]

these guys are the best ACC lawyers in the country. And therefore IN THE WORLD.

http://www.jmlaw.co.nz/

might be worth a talk?


Have just been emailed from them this morning allocating a lawyer to my case starting from this Friday- Thankyou though

[Shaun Harris]

LAQC's don't exist any more, and you have massively over-simplified the situation. If you're self-employed via a closely held company you NEED to talk to your accountant about ACC, because it needs to be structured in such a way that you'll be entitled to a claim. Too many accountants think first about how they can minimise ACC bills (often at clients' instructions) without consideration for what happens in an accident.

It's reasonably likely that OP asked their accountant to do something to reduce their ACC bill some time in the past, not considering what may happen if they need to make a claim. I've seen it many times.

Source: I'm an accountant.



YES, I have massively over simplified it, as I do not know the law and accounting practice regarding this. But the reason behind my post about it on here was to make people aware of there are different strokes for different folks and hoping that an ACCOUNTANT like you would speak up and clarify the situation for others so as they do not end up where My family and I have due to not having all the dots in the correct place. Thanmks for your input.

Agreed re the minimising of my ACC Bill with my past accountant, I did not request this but he would have been thinking for me in regards of minimising my over heads rather than protecting the future in case. Tax etc is just some thing that has to be paid, I have never stressed about it and never will, it is pointless too.

[p.dath]

Talking of loss making companies.... There is a franchise company in the bay that contracts the installation of their products and servicing to another company.... This company is owned by the same man and charges sweet fuck all for their work and makes huge losses every year, so the government give tax rebates and lower levies.

This would fail the "related parties" test. The mostly likely result is the person involved will get caught in a routine audit. I hope for their sake it is soon. If they don't get caught for an extended period of time, such as 10 years, the back dated compounded penalties could easily exceed the person's net wealth, and they will loose their house, business, car and any other asset they happen to own.

[p.dath]

unfortunately I Paid an accountant who made a few mistakes with setting me up and did not know any better myself.

That's probably a tough call. There are several ways of doing it, none of them wrong, that just achieve different outcomes. A bit like suspension settings ... :-)

[HenryDorsetCase]

This is the simplest and best approach. Unfortunately many small business owners are convinced they can lower their tax and ACC obligations through a series of complex structures. In the end they only wind up reducing their entitlements and increasing their accounting fees.

....and legal fees with any luck :)

[Akzle]

i thought they'd scrapped the LAQC shit and now did some other bullshit

[Shaun Harris]

That's probably a tough call. There are several ways of doing it, none of them wrong, that just achieve different outcomes. A bit like suspension settings ... :-)


yea, but if I was setting up some ones suspension I would discuss the options and out comes with them, in this case I was never informed of any different options. If I had been I would have deffinately made sure I was Fully insured as such.

[Icemaestro]

As someone who goes out and sees people after their injuries...its got nothing to do with the structure of your company, except for that self employer people can take out cover plus extra, which lets you set a compensation figure. Otherwise, ACC just looks at your income, IE profit if you are a sole trader. I recommend to all self employed people I know that they either do as above suggested and make youself an employee, or take regular drawings of an amount that you could survive if reduced to 80% of.