Business, BAS & Payroll

Running a small business in Australia means answering to three compliance clocks at once: the GST and activity statement cycle, the payroll cycle with its Single Touch Payroll reporting and superannuation guarantee deadlines, and the annual income tax cycle where concessions like the instant asset write-off are decided. This collection keeps a working reference for each clock — the current-year figures, the due dates, and the legislative status of anything that has been announced but not yet passed.

It is written for owner-operators, directors of small companies and the bookkeepers who support them — people who do not need a treatise on GST law, but do need to know precisely when registration becomes compulsory, what each quarter requires, and which employer dates carry consequences if missed. BAS quarters follow the financial year — September, December, March and June — and most of the references here are organised around that rhythm.

GST registration: the $75,000 threshold works through both halves of the registration decision — when you must register, and when registering voluntarily can still make sense. Super guarantee 2026-27 sets out the current rate, every employer due date, and what the move to Payday Super means for payment timing. The STP finalisation checklist covers the end-of-year declaration employers must make so their employees’ income statements go tax-ready.

The collection also does something most business content skips: it separates law from announcement. Instant asset write-off for 2026-27 exists precisely because the write-off threshold has repeatedly been announced in a Budget long before it is enacted — and buying an asset on the strength of a press release is not a compliance strategy. The resource records what is currently legislated, what is only proposed, and when that status was last checked.

For employers, the four references also map naturally onto the calendar. Superannuation payment timing now runs with each pay cycle rather than quarter-end alone, which makes the super guarantee reference a year-round companion rather than a June and December read. July belongs to STP finalisation, when the prior year’s payroll is declared tax-ready. Each activity statement quarter closes with its own lodgement and payment, and the weeks before 30 June are when asset purchase decisions collide with the write-off’s legislative status. Reading each reference just ahead of its season, rather than after the deadline, is the pattern this collection is built around.

Each reference states the financial year or quarter it applies to and links the ATO source behind every figure and date, with the verification date recorded on the page. Employer obligations are treated as high-sensitivity and re-verified on a scheduled cycle, because a missed super guarantee deadline has consequences that a stale blog post does not. Start with the super guarantee calendar if you employ staff, or the GST threshold decision guide if you are approaching registration — and for help applying any of it, the practice’s business services sit directly behind this collection.