Most of my income is off-shore - what software for tax purposes

[Lis Sowerbutts]

OK this is a little complex! Maybe if I can explain it to a forum I can explain it to my accountant. I make most of my money offshore- I am paid my overseas advertisers and I pay for business services such as hosting and subscriptions to off-shore entities. I am normally paid via paypal, ocaisionally by a US check which I bank in Australia and also by direct deposit into a New Zealand bank.

I am a tax resident in both Australia and New Zealand.

I am running as a solo operator, haven't hit the revenue limits required for GST registration and haven't registered for an ABN because I have never had a local client.

My issue is that I am now starting to make enough money to have to declare it to both tax regimes and I want to setup a book-keeping system which will work for both tax jursiditions my requirements are:
* easy integration with paypal - where 80% of my payments come from
* using multiple currencies with one set of accounts - different accounts have different currencies - but then being able to generate a profit&loss in either NZ$ or A$ for each country.

I prefer free or low cost - from what I've seen on MYOB and quickbooks they are of little use to anyone who is running my type of business as I don't employ staff, have GST issues, have inventory.

[Army of One]

I would also look at www.xero.com - totally web based, NZ company now in Australia, handles multi-currency and has direct daily downloads from your bank.

Designed for non-accountants. Free trial then $49/month or $499 a year.

Not sure re the paypal integration but I am sure something could be worked out.

There is also tool to allow Paypal imports directly into Quickbooks that seems to work quite well - www.bigredconsulting.com

If you want free - use excel to track all expenses, plus the merchant reports from Paypal should be sufficient to show your income.

If you want low cost....ummm, well - you get what you pay for!

Have you actually had written advice regarding your tax residency? It is actually very rare to have residency in both countries - I deal with a lot of Australia / NZ clients and have never seen it before. Do you mean you are simply required to lodge a return in both countries?

Hope my information was helpful.

[Lis Sowerbutts]

Originally Posted by Army of One

Have you actually had written advice regarding your tax residency? It is actually very rare to have residency in both countries - I deal with a lot of Australia / NZ clients and have never seen it before. Do you mean you are simply required to lodge a return in both countries?

Hope my information was helpful.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am definitly an Aujstralian tax resident on the basis of being legally in the country and having been at the same address for over 6 months (way over). According to NZ I have a "permanent place of abode" in New Zealand because I have social ties there and residential property. So as far as I can tell I am therefore tax resident in both but because of the tax treaty won't be double taxed but do have to file returns in both countries. What the ATO can't tell me is what numbers I should be putting on invoices my Aussie tax number? my NZ IRD no? both?

The real problem is that the tax laws haven't caught up with online business - I don't have an establishment - I have a laptop LOL!

BTW I found a free version of Quicken - the starter version is free in the US and downloadable - it takes a while but seems to work just fine.