The most expensive sentence in small business tax is "we'll look at it in June." By June, the year has already happened: income is earned, assets are bought or not bought, super is paid or not paid, and the levers that remain move days, not dollars. Real tax planning is what you set up in July — then the June conversation becomes a tidy harvest instead of a salvage operation. Here's the July setup worth doing now.
Get the structure question answered early
Whether you trade as a sole trader, company, trust or some combination decides more about your tax outcome than any June manoeuvre ever will — and structures are best changed at the start of a year, not the end. If your profits have grown, your risk profile has changed, or you've never actually had the structure conversation, book it this month. Restructuring mid-year creates part-year complexity; restructuring in June achieves almost nothing for the year that's nearly over.
This is also the month to deal with the housekeeping that structures demand: trust deeds that haven't been read in a decade, division of roles between entities, loan accounts between you and the company that need a documented plan rather than an awkward year-end scramble.
Set the salary, super and drawings plan
Decide deliberately, in July, how money will flow to you this year: wages, super contributions, dividends, trust distributions, or some mix. A planned approach lets you smooth PAYG withholding across the year, make super contributions progressively (rather than discovering in June that the cap room you meant to use requires cash you don't have), and avoid the director-loan problems that arise when drawings run ahead of any documented plan. The owners who get the best year-end outcomes aren't doing anything clever in June — they're executing a plan written in July.
Build the evidence as you go
A long list of deductions dies every year for lack of documentation: the vehicle claim without a logbook, the home office claim without records, the travel without a diary. July is when to start these, because most need to cover the year, not be reconstructed at the end of it. A vehicle logbook, in particular, requires a continuous representative period — start one now and it serves you for years. Set up the habit infrastructure: a folder (digital is fine) for receipts that don't flow through the bank feed, a recurring monthly reminder to file them, and correct coding in your accounting file from day one so your accountant isn't archaeology-ing in May.
Put the calendar dates in now
Tax planning fails most often by calendar, not by cleverness. In July, diarise the year's fixed points: BAS deadlines each quarter, the FBT year-end on 31 March, your accountant's preferred cut-off for year-end planning (book the May meeting now — that's the one where decisions still have time to be executed), and a mid-year review in January or February to check the plan against actual results. With payday super now running every pay cycle, the old quarterly super deadline juggle is gone — but that makes the remaining dates more important, not less, because they're the only ones left to miss.
Know which decisions are timing decisions
A handful of genuine year-end levers do exist — timing of asset purchases, invoicing near the boundary, prepayments, writing off bad debts. The July move isn't to action them; it's to know they exist and keep them available. That means clean books all year (you can't make a timing decision in June from accounts that are four months behind) and a rough running view of where profit is landing. The businesses that capture year-end opportunities are simply the ones whose numbers were current enough to see them coming.
FAQ
Isn't tax planning my accountant's job?
The advice is; the infrastructure isn't. An accountant can only optimise what's documented, structured and timely. The July setup above is what makes their June advice executable instead of theoretical.
What's the single highest-value July action?
Booking the structure-and-remuneration conversation with your accountant this month. One hour in July routinely outperforms five in June.
We're behind on our books. Plan first or catch up first?
Catch up first — planning from wrong numbers is worse than not planning. But set the deadline tight: books current by end of August, planning conversation in September. That still leaves nine months of year to act on it.
Want to know whether your setup is costing you money? Our free Business Health Check takes five minutes and looks at structure, systems and the numbers together.
About the author
Nick Lucock
Chief Executive Officer, Valont
Nick leads Valont's day-to-day operations across Finance, People, Operations and Growth. He writes about how the work actually gets done — the processes, systems, and tools that keep Australian SMEs compliant and growing.
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