It’s the end of June. And apart from being an indication that we’re exactly halfway between one New Year’s Eve hangover and the next, it also means the taxman will soon be calling.
Like the hangover, tax time can evoke a strong and unpleasant feeling of nausea in the equestrian professional. With a significant cash income, regular travel, and a largely outdoor lifestyle, it’s no shock to learn that we’re not the world’s greatest bookkeepers.
Not only does this raise the hackles of our accountants, but it also means our industry is a prime target for the unkindly folk at the ATO – folk who barely blink when bombarded with the lame arguments that explain our failure to lodge a return for the past five years.
So as someone who – under the watchful eye of a dedicated and law-abiding accountant – has recently become more financially organised, I’ve come up with a few tips to help you through this most dreaded time of year.
Buy some shoes
Surprisingly, this wasn’t a recommendation from my accountant. But then, as boffins who devote their lives to spreadsheets and calculators, they’re rarely full of practical suggestions.
While the shoes themselves will do nothing except help you run from the taxman when he comes calling, the box they come in will provide a safe and secure storage facility for all your most important financial information.
Sort of like a bank vault – except made from cardboard – the shoebox is the first step towards financial organisation. Although sneered at by accountants and bookkeepers the world over, it’s a great hiding place for all the odds and ends that those same people come begging for at this time of year.
Fuel receipts are the biggest problem. Like socks, these terrible little scraps of paper have a tendency to disappear without a trace into the darkest recesses of our cars, trucks and laundries – only to re-emerge in a scrumpled ball years later and after you’ve already served your time for tax evasion.
The moral of the story? Get yourself some new shoes.
Cash your cheques
Back in the old days, before electronic transfers, direct deposits and online entries, cheques were the primary currency of the horse world.
While accepting cheques was sometimes a risky proposition in an industry that’s not always financially viable for those involved, they were the easiest way to transfer the large amounts needed whenever there’s a horse concerned.
Far from being pushed out of circulation, at many events the cheque is still widely used. Unfortunately for us riders, prize-money cheques are most commonly forgotten once we arrive home, turn the truck off, and discover between our legs half the Big Mac we were enjoying hours earlier.
So at this time of year it pays to stand in front of your glory wall of ribbons while holding your bank statements. Now take a moment to account for all the prize-money cheques you’ve won this year. If you’re missing some, they’re sure to be found in an overgrown corner of your dashboard – if nothing else, what you discover should help you pay for one Big Mac before your tax bill hits.
Stay current
In a former life, I was one of those people who did my tax a year late. Young, rebellious, and unenthused by the thought of sitting down and playing with bank statements, I left it as long as possible.
Undoubtedly the worst way to do things, it meant scratching around in the bottom of my shoebox for receipts that looked like they’d been buried since the beginning of time. Slow, painful and embarrassingly inefficient, it took little more than one hefty slap from my new accountant to bring me up to date.
Now that I live in the tax-present, I’m almost looking forward to June 30th. Not only are the books in order, but the shoebox itself a model of such organisation that I’d be proud to show it to even the meanest, most anal accountant.
Which fortunately is not the one I have.
See you somewhere out there.
Hamish
