The holiday season could mean a busy time for your business and you may need an extra set of hands to see you in to the new year. Whether this means hiring someone for a few days or a couple of weeks, you’ll need to work out if they’re employees or contractors to get their tax and super right.

The fact is both employees and contractors can be hired for:

• casual, temporary, on call and infrequent work
• busy periods
• short jobs, specific tasks and projects.

How do you work it out?

Use [the ATO's] Employee/contractor decision tool to get a quick and reliable answer. Based on your answers to some simple questions, the tool will give you certainty about whether your short-term workers are employees or contractors and what this means for your business.

[The ATO has] listened to the concerns of small businesses, tax professionals, industry associations and software providers, and are working towards reducing GST compliance costs for small businesses.

[The ATO] are reducing the amount of GST information required for the business activity statement (BAS) to simplify GST bookkeeping and reporting requirements.

A simpler BAS will give small businesses significant time and cost savings by simplifying account set up, GST bookkeeping and BAS preparation. Businesses will be able to more easily classify transactions and prepare and lodge their BAS.

From 1 July 2017, small businesses will only need to report the following GST information on their BAS:

• GST on sales (1A)
• GST on purchases (1B)
• Total sales (G1)

The requirement to report Export sales (G2), other GST free sales (G3), Capital purchases (G10) and Non-capital purchases (G11) will be removed.

A simpler BAS will support greater use of existing automation functions and potential digital solutions as they evolve.

For more information and to watch the ATO's 'Simpler BAS' video click here.

Money you earn from renting out a room in your house is rental income. This applies to rooms rented by traditional means or through a sharing economy website or app [e.g. AirBNB].

You can only claim expenses related to the part of the house you rent out and you need to apportion the expenses accordingly. However, you can claim 100% of any fees or commissions charged by the rental facilitator or administrator.

The ATO has examples to help you understand how claiming deductions works when renting rooms, or your main residence on an occasional basis.

Capital gains tax may also apply if they sell property used to generate rental income.

For further details click here.