2016 December Clearnews

Welcome to ClearNews December 2016.

Every few months, ClearNews tells you what's new at Cleardocs. We also send you monthly ClearLaw emails discussing legal developments relevant to the documents we provide.

Cleardocs is open over the holidays

You will still be able to order documents through Cleardocs over the Christmas and New Year break. As usual, our site will operate 24 hours a day, everyday.

Our helpline will also be available throughout most of this period, and will operate during our standard business hours. However, we will not be available during public holidays which are:

• Boxing Day — Monday, 26 December 2016;
• Substitute day for Christmas Day — Tuesday, 27 December 2016; and
• New Year's Day — Monday, 2 January 2017.

Cleardocs legal helpline at Maddocks closed over Christmas and New Years

The Cleardocs legal helpline at Maddocks will close at 2pm on Friday, 23 December 2016, and reopen at 9am on Monday, 9 January 2017.

The free legal helpline at Maddocks will maintain their operating hours from 9 January 2017. They are:

• Monday to Friday;
• between 10am to 1pm, then from 2pm to 5pm.

2016 IPA National Congress, 23-25 November 2016

Last month, Thomson Reuters Cleardocs proudly sponsored the Institute of Public Accountants National Congress at the Grand Hyatt, Melbourne. The seminar comprised 2.5 days of educational sessions, with presenters across the spectrum of accounting.

The education programs and workshops covered topics such as taxation, SMSF, business trends, compliance, management accounting and cloud technology.

Thank you to the IPA for allowing us to be part of this event. We look forward to continuing the assist the profession with their legal document needs.

Maddocks lawyers and Cleardocs present Tax & Super Australia webinar

Tax & Super Australia have released a webinar presented by Julian Smith, Maddocks Lawyers, and Cassandra Townsend, our precedent lawyer, product manager. The webinar is on SMSFs and alternative investment strategies, covering the following:

• limited recourse borrowing statistics and conclusions;
• key borrowing limitations; and
• solutions to these limitations:
  • unit trust solution.
  • joint borrowing solution.
  • small APRA fund and investments in unrelated trusts.

We look forward to working with Tax & Super Australia on further webinars.

Reminder about 31 January 2017 deadline for review of LRBAs

This year, we published news items in April ClearLaw and June ClearNews about the related party 'safe-harbour' guidelines released by the ATO in Practical Compliance Guideline 2016/5. We wish to remind you that the deadline for an SMSF to review and, if necessary, amend its LRBAs to ensure they are on terms consistent with an arm's length dealing expires on 31 January 2017. If the LRBA is used to acquire real property, one such requirement is a registered mortgage over the property. For more information, please read our earlier news items.

Seasons Greetings from the Cleardocs team

We wish you a safe and happy holiday season and would like to thank you for your continued support this year. See you in 2017.