The Long Way Home - Chapter 15 - Gladstone Day 13

Deflated – when you ask Mrs Google,  having suddenly lost confidence or optimism.

“the news left him feeling utterly deflated”

Up early expecting a big day working on the website, initially I still have no internet. At 6.30am the billing period apparently ticks over and internet access via the Dongle returns. Not at the 400Gb I pay for but at least the 60Gb of the old plan which means I can work. The promised “one hour” to reset was yet another misnomer by Telstra staff – and they wonder why there is so much derision across social media about them.

Now to put a hole in the upload of photographs and blogs, readying the website for launch. First chapter with close to 100 photographs goes up without a hitch. Next the corresponding panorama shots go up. Thinking I am on a roll, I set the laptop into adding the next chapter of photographs. They too end up in the right place on the website.

Jubilant, although it has taken more than 90 minutes I have 2 more chapters of photographs, something like 170 photographs on the website and are a little closer to having the entire first book being well into the late 20th chapters.

The next chapter has only 50 photographs and I set it in motion. Only 35 appear to be uploaded. I delete them and redo the upload. Again it stops at 35. Rather than delete them and try again, I move on to the next chapter. These appear to upload but I need them to then have all their information downloaded to a CSV file to update them to the final products. The file when I open it is empty. I had started the secondary upload required to get the thumbnail shots but these too will not upload. Befuddled, I again delete everything and start again.

The Einstein theory of insanity prevails. There is no point going on and because it is Saturday there is no chance of a remedy until Monday, although I do get a hold of the owner of the company building the website who is unable to do no more than confirm, until he can speak to the developer employee there is not much he can do about it.

Deflated, I go back to bed.

I have so much yet to finalise and so many things I want to share with you. Unfortunately another blockage sees the time before the website goes live, extended. The internet issues of the last two days and now this hiccup only add to the frustrations of late.

What’s more frustrating is I have no control over the things creating it. In professional business any frustrations were always met with increased determination. Invariably, frustrations at a professional accounting level centred around clients not taking advice and failing or heading off in a direction contrary to the apparent law or the morals and ending with restitution  requirements.

Never one to say “I told you so”, there were times when it would have been more than appropriate as I was left to sort out a mess not of my making. Such is the lot of the professional accountant.

Clients will listen to anyone with an opinion. My greatest pet hate is what I call “pub advice”. Many times a client came to me with some outrageous plan of action, based on “layman” advice accumulated from sources outside the professional accounting industry.

Conversations centred around “but he is getting away with it” or “he is claiming it” are met with logical discussions around the impetus and merit of the advice. In Australia we live in what is termed a “self assessment” regime and whilst this means you could make the most outrageous claims in a tax return and technically speaking it should be processed, the ATO have the right to audit your return. If in an audit they decide your claims are not within the law, the penalties can be upwards of 200% of the tax you tried to avoid.

Many and varied are the claims clients, believing they are missing out, would come to me asking why we did not consider a similar claim for them. One of the worst sources of this type of conversation were the advertisements by the “sausage factory” firms such as ITP or H&R Block suggesting they had a checklist of claims they would claim. More to the point these checklists, while important tools in ensuring clients returns are correctly prepared, are only reminders as to the expenses they had potentially incurred AND had receipts to justify their claims.

Again, like “pub advice”, the stretching of the truth surrounding what might and what is, marketing on national television, the bane of the true professional taxation advisor.

Then there is the whole industry around tax evasion. “Bottom of the Harbour” was one such strategy from my early experiences, which, morally incomprehensible but technically legal until the law was changed. The rising to the fore of the Artful Dodger, Peter Clyne, an accountant who pushed way past the edge of the envelope, still within the “law”, which in time had the law changed, all part of the influencers in early professional accounting for me.

You could see, the edge of the envelope was our duty, but walking around Fiji signing up potential beneficiaries to soak up their tax free thresholds, until their loss of the thresholds as non residents, was always fraught with danger. 

What he did show was that the rules were there to be utilised. Able to successfully delay the contest to collect outstanding taxes on many occasions, by making claim amounts invalid by paying one cent towards the bill making the paperwork incorrect show the rules could be used. To me this suggested a strategy of “throwing the paper in the air until it came down the right way” was something to work by.

Objecting to assessments of determinations made by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) can be the ultimate test of validity of a claim. Whilst no accountant should be able to claim a 100% success rate in objecting on behalf of clients, mine was very high, justifying my confidence in strategies provided for clients.

There were also times when an objection needed to be lodged for more “spurious” claims. Research is the key, looking to create the nexus between the claim and the gaining and producing of assessable income or so the law suggests. If that is not the case, then expanding items within the normal course of business, where it is not specifically denied elsewhere in the Income Tax Assessment Act, is the key

I have had new clients turn up on the front step with ATO issues of denial of expenses where their previous accountant would not even attempt an objection. Whilst not knowing the history behind the interaction between them, it seemed a little incongruous an accountant would not back their lodgement. For me it meant more fees, handling the objections, which more often than not we won but for clients where we had lodged the returns, we generally prepared objections for free.

Again faith in what we did.

Frustration because others dont have the same ideals, particularly businesses of today, causes me no end of angst. Add to that things “not working” as they should…..