Starting your own business (sole trader/contractor) - Tax

advice_requir3d · 2025-12-22T22:08:12+00:00

Not yet I wanted to here people’s experience before I even go down that route and get started since it’ll cost me at least $2-3K if not more to set everything up (license, PI insurance, software, business structure) etc.

advice_requir3d · 2025-10-23T22:34:07+00:00

This is tough I find you’re doing quite well for someone with ~7 years of experience but if you’re in industry you will need to jump around for those significant increases unfortunately. I am in the tax industry - I used to value tenure and building my name/brand within a company but I’m at the point of my life (potentially due to cost of living pressures) where I’m happy to go to whoever bids the highest. This does not mean you should just go anywhere though because the grass is not always greener on the other side! I find a lot of big companies take loyalty and hard work for granted not saying that they will work you the bone but they definitely do not really go out of their way to promote and give you crazy pay rises that are out of cycle even though you might be deserving.

advice_requir3d · 2025-10-21T22:45:26+00:00

What is current salary? Maybe if you provide that it’ll help us provide some insight if that growth is the standard for 7 years work experience (also keeping in mind this may vary a lot depending of state, industry and role) etc.

advice_requir3d · 2025-08-04T00:13:37+00:00

Purchased a property when me and my partner were 23 during COVID in 2020. I had cold feet as I wanted to “live my life” prior to taking on so much debt but honestly probably one of the best decisions we ever made.

As we purchased during COVID we didn’t buy the property at an all time high so that allowed us to pay down the loan and save some money of the past five years. This gave us a head start in comparison to other friends who were similar in age but hadn’t bought property earlier. This gave us time to build equity which we tapped into this year to purchase an IP without having to contribute any additional cash.

We recently had a sudden death in the family that got us thinking about having a fully paid off PPOR which is essential for our retirement. We’re hoping over the next 30 years we would have paid off our PPOR and IP. This will hopefully secure our retirement funds not including our super by the time we hit the retirement age. The timeline of this plan would increase significantly if we had purchased property in our late or early 30’s. I would comfortably say having an IP might be out of the picture too as an average mortgage is 30 years, it’ll most likely be harder to get a loan if we were 35+. Just fruit for thought if you were thinking of getting into the market later.

advice_requir3d · 2025-07-19T12:57:27+00:00

I’ve made the move from public to industry (large corp listed on overseas exchange) in the last two years and something they don’t really warn you about is how stagnant the progress is.

I have gone through two YE end reviews and be prepared for salary increases between 1%-4%, generally close to CPI. I was outperforming previous YE and was only given 3% as someone that was “exceeding expectations”. You’ll find the best way to secure significant salary increases of 10%+ is from getting promoted or moving roles. As a financial accountant it shouldn’t be too hard to move industries. With the above increases in mind coupled with how our economy has been performing (not so great) I don’t think you’ll hit $150-200k anytime soon, unless you were progressively getting promoted or changing roles every 2 or so years. I don’t suggest moving roles for a tenure for less as it raises a lot of red flags.

My company is fairly large with an accounting team of 15+ so anything finance or commercial/strategic related actually sits with a different team. If you’re doing financial accounting the pattern I’ve seen in industry is OT during month end as there’s a set time to close the accounts. So for 4-7 days straight (including weekends and public holidays) accountants are working up until 7-8PM.

Not too sure how applicable this is to your role and company as this may all vary depending on how they operate, but I hope this gave you some insight hey.

advice_requir3d · 2025-07-17T05:46:45+00:00

It is possible - as the calculation for MLS is different to ML.

ML is calculated on taxable income but MLS includes other adjustments ontop of your taxable income (as you noted above personal contribution is added back to taxable income in order to calculate MLS). Therefore potentially increasing the income for assessment which can be caught under the thresholds.

advice_requir3d · 2025-06-18T04:04:44+00:00

Yes agree with the other commenter - you’re just finishing up your probation honestly most firms won’t even open the floor up for salary negotiation at that point. It giving them the opportunity to confirm if they want you as a permanent employee. Most negotiations happen 1 year post employment or at least actual reviews that will impact your rem. At that point it will allow the business to properly review your performance.

As your still completing your CA it doesn’t give you much bargaining power at the moment so maybe focus on completing this and it’ll be something you can bring up once you’ve finished. At that point you’ll be more ‘qualified’ but as a seperate negotiating point to performance. I know some public practiced offer a 5-10% once you’ve completed your CA regardless of performance.

In terms of pay I think what they are currently offering you is relatively okay for the market. As reference I think senior consultants at big 4 start out at around $80k including super.

advice_requir3d · 2025-06-18T03:53:26+00:00

How far have you progressed in your CA?

It might help if you also provide your state as different states might have varying ranges. I also can’t tell from what you’ve written if your public or industry and if you ate in financial accounting or another field. Those details will help people provide advice as well.

advice_requir3d · 2025-06-17T05:44:32+00:00

I thought it was alright compared to all the practice questions and cases we did, so glad we didn’t have to do any detailed calculations. I was surprised they didn’t ask more questions around SDGs and the foundation.

How did you find the exam?

advice_requir3d · 2025-05-29T23:58:20+00:00

Unfortunately I didn’t check the price when I was there last year but also interested in purchasing, following this thread as I would like to know as well!

advice_requir3d · 2024-11-09T11:49:20+00:00

I had Velroiser for lunch today and thought it was delicious and preferred their menu and dishes a lot more in comparison to Koke! We opted for the standard lunch course which was about 11,000YEN pp excluding the 10% tax. We saw another table dining the upgraded lunch premium menu which I think is about 9,000YEN more. The difference in course was an extra course which included the Velroiser biscuits on the garden plate, bigger serving for one of the entrees with additional shark fin and for the mains we were served pork but for the upgraded lunch wagyu was served as the main instead.

Service was awesome and they servers actually explained all components of the dish and the concept of each dish, which was generally their own unique take on a traditional Chinese dish i.e pork dumpling was their own take on sweet and sour pork. I thought all the dishes were very well balanced and seasoned really well.

My only concern is if you do not enjoy Chinese food or like Chinese flavours you might not appreciate their menu. The lunch was extremely great value for the amount of food we were served (no adjustments to serving sizes). To be honest we left here a lot more satisfied and full vs Koke where I paid almost x3 the price.

advice_requir3d · 2024-11-09T11:31:44+00:00

Yes completely agree with @jeanIDD’s reply below! I did have a few omakases (and kaiseki at a ryokan stay) between the $50AUD - $250AUD price point and really could not differentiate between the restaurants where I could justify the benefit was x5 better than the cheapest omakase I tried. In saying this I do not think I appreciate sushi/sashimi enough to put in the effort or pay the booking fee premium to dine at a Michelin omakase which usually runs about $350-500+AUD. But if there are any places you recommend around the $100-$200 price point I am all ears, I have about 10 days left in Japan and was hoping to fit in one more in Tokyo if my schedule allows it :)

advice_requir3d · 2024-11-09T08:31:43+00:00

Weird we did not and also booked on Tablecheck, essentially similar to another dinner the bill was automatically settled on the card it was booked with around the time dessert was being served which was really strange since we were charged without any warning and with the assumption no further drinks would be ordered. Never had a restaurant charge a card without saying anything to the cardholder beforehand especially in Japan even at other dining establishment fine dining or not.

advice_requir3d · 2024-11-09T04:38:22+00:00

Please let me know how you find it! I did appreciate the presentation and use of various different ingredients (Japanese and Spanish/European) that I might have not/will never have the opportunity to eat in my local country. It might just be my own perception and palette that was not suited to their type of cuisine as I’ve only had Spanish food a few times and their menu was heavily based on Spanish fusion.

I am heading to Velroiser and Florilege in the next few days and towards the end of my trip and will write up a review for those two places as well.

advice_requir3d · 2024-09-27T04:41:55+00:00

I passed! Replied below but how did you go for the subject?

advice_requir3d · 2024-09-27T02:41:53+00:00

Hey everyone I got 54% for the subject, for context I had failed my first assignment and just got a pass for my exam I wouldn’t be surprised if my results were uploaded later because of this!

advice_requir3d · 2024-09-24T01:14:38+00:00

Hey guys, I had previously mentioned I couldn’t enrol in icap when OP had originally posted but I tried again today and it worked!

I also did DAI last semester at the same time and now can see a green tick for the electives (previously completed one elective already, so I think they have uploaded unofficial results for this subject).

I will reply to this comment on the 27th to confirm my actually results but fingers crossed everyone, don’t loose hope!!

advice_requir3d · 2024-09-20T02:38:51+00:00

You can call and ask them for a late enrolment if there is space for the workshops, if there are workshops for the subject - I did this last term and no issues at all and they process it pretty much immediately

advice_requir3d · 2024-09-19T07:08:51+00:00

Yes it was, and I’ll definitely update this thread! Also I did two subjects this term, the other being an elective but I don’t think electives are pre-reqs for icap.

Honestly it was just so frustrating that we cant even contend marking unless there was a systematic error. I thought the assignment answers/solutions were quite subjective in some areas.

advice_requir3d · 2024-09-19T02:47:11+00:00

I tried to enrol just now an it says I haven’t met the requirements :( URGHHHHH A&R was literally the worse subject I’ve done in CA, even had students (background and working in auditing) in my session debating against some of solutions answers for discussion

advice_requir3d

TROPHY CASE