Your Ultimate Guide to Smart Tax Planning: Tips and Strategies for 2024/25 

Tax season can be stressful, but a bit of smart planning can help you save significantly. Let’s walk through some essential tax planning tips and strategies for the financial year 2024/25, designed to help individuals and small businesses maximise their benefits and minimise their tax obligations. 

Understanding Tax Planning 

Tax planning involves arranging your financial affairs to minimise taxes legitimately. Remember, while tax planning is legal and encouraged, tax avoidance schemes are not. Ensure your strategies comply with tax laws and guidelines to avoid unnecessary scrutiny by the ATO as they are ramping up their audit activity.  

Key Tax Planning Tips for Individuals 

1. Superannuation Contributions 

If your income is below $45,000 and you make a non-concessional contribution of $1,000 to your super fund, the government contributes an additional $500.  

For those who have partners with and adjusted taxable incomes of less than $40,000, if you make a spousal contribution of $3,000, you are eligible for a tax offset of $540. This is a great way of boosting of spouses super whilst getting a tax benefit personally if you are at a higher marginal tax rate.  

For taxpayers who earn above these amounts, you may want to consider topping up your super up to the concessional contribution cap of $30,000. If your super balance is under $500,000 and have not utilised the cap in the prior financial years, you may want to consider utilising the cap available for the 2020 financial year before it’s lost. This strategy is particularly helpful if you’ve had a large income year or one-off capital gains event.  

Here are some useful fact sheets:

• Spouse contributions – here
• Government co-contributions – here
• How to claim a tax deduction for personal contributions – here
• Split contributions with your spouse – here
• Catch up concessional contributions – here
• How to monitor catch up concessional contributions – here
• Working out your non-concessional contribution cap – here
• Monitoring your Transfer Balance Cap – here

2. Private Health Insurance 

To avoid paying the Medicare levy surcharge (up to 2%), ensure your private health insurance includes adequate hospital cover. Extras alone won’t exempt you from the surcharge, potentially saving more than the cost of insurance itself. 

3. Income Protection Insurance 

Opt to hold income protection insurance personally rather than through superannuation, allowing you a direct tax deduction and access to better policy benefits. 

4. Investment Property Management 

If your income will reduce next financial year, consider prepaying interest and bring forward repairs on investment properties. Banks generally allow you to prepay up to a year’s interest, providing immediate tax deductions. 

5. Review Your Investment Portfolio 

Harvest capital losses to offset realised capital gains before 30 June. This is particularly relevant if you’ve sold any assets at a gain during the year. 

Consider deferring asset sales with large capital gains until after 30 June, especially if you expect a lower income next year. 

6. ATO Data Matching Awareness 

If you are a regular reader of this blog, we have mentioned how the ATO is ramping up their audit activities. Their main agenda items include: 

• Cryptocurrency 

• Rental property deductions mainly around interest deductions to ensure correct loan structuring and classification of repairs and maintenance items 

• Holiday rentals 

• Home office expenditures 

Ensure you are working with a holistic accountant that can help you navigate these items to ensure you remain compliant and have the right structures in place.  

Small Business Essentials 

Before any tax planning is conducted, it is important to establish a forecast of your projected income. Given that we’re dealing with an income-based tax, there is no point trying to forecast your tax position without properly understanding your taxable income. All businesses should have a Profit and Loss forecast at a minimum. This is an essential place to start when it comes to tax planning. It also talks to the timing of when tax planning is most effective. We would typically execute tax planning in May and June so that we have the majority of the year as actual figures and therefore only need to rely on forecasting up to 2 months of the year. 

1. Payroll Tax 

If your business payroll exceeds the payroll tax threshold, consider reviewing director and related party remuneration structures to help manage this liability effectively. This can be done through dividend or distribution strategies to avoid additional taxes.  

2. Asset Purchases and Depreciation 

Take advantage of the Instant Asset Write-off of up to $20,000. Review your asset register to optimise deductions and manage balancing adjustments efficiently. 

3. Debt Management 

Assess accounts receivable annually to identify and write off genuine bad debts before the financial year ends, avoiding unnecessary taxation on unrecoverable income. 

4. Division 7A Loans 

Address any director loan balances proactively, ensuring minimum repayments are made timely. Be cautious with repayment methods to avoid triggering unintended tax consequences. 

5. Stock on Hand 

Review stock on hand to determine whether there is any opportunity to revalue stock on hand at 30 June. The benefit of reviewing stock on hand prior to 30 June is that it gives your accountant the opportunity to look at obsolete stock, or stock that is overvalued, and reduce it. This will reduce your tax obligations. 

6. Review your distribution strategy 

The importance of distribution and dividend strategy tax planning lies in its ability to materially influence the way your business and investment profits flow to beneficiaries who may be at lower marginal tax rates and/or fund further investment. There are several considerations around how you formulate this strategy, including scrutiny from the ATO around s100A, Division 7A and UPE legislations.  

If managed correctly around your long-term goals, your distribution strategy will dictate how quickly you can repay debt, manage your taxes and fund future business growth and investment. Many accountants are too short-term focused on tax rather than strategy. A holistic accountant should work with you to understand your overall financial position and goals to determine a strategy that works for you best. This may mean some additional tax in the short term, but it can yield long-term benefits.  

7. Maximising Your Business Potential 

Implement the 80/20 rule to focus efforts effectively in your business. Concentrate on four key areas: 

• People: Hire and retain quality staff and provide necessary training. 

• Pricing: Regularly review pricing strategies to reflect market conditions. 

• Product/Service: Ensure your offerings solve genuine problems. 

• Process: Automate and systemize to enhance productivity. 

8. Looking Ahead: Be Prepared 

Small business tax planning is far more than an exercise in compliance; it is a deliberate and ongoing strategy to amplify financial outcomes and protect future prosperity. By engaging proactively, business owners can convert tax from a silent drag on profits into a source of competitive advantage — freeing up capital for reinvestment, expansion, or personal wealth creation. Moreover, well-considered tax strategies build resilience, enabling businesses to adapt to legislative changes and economic volatility with confidence. In a landscape where margins are thin and every decision compounds over time, intelligent tax planning is not optional — it is essential. The businesses that master it place themselves in the strongest position to thrive, not just survive. 

We hope these tax planning insights empower you to make informed decisions this financial year. Stay tuned for more updates and proactive financial strategies to safeguard and grow your wealth.