• Fuel tax credit rates: You may now be eligible to claim.
• Personal income tax thresholds: Don’t forget to apply the new thresholds to all your employee payments.
• Small business Capital Gains Tax (CGT) concessions: You may now be eligible to claim.
• Superannuation: Changes to how you calculate super contributions for your employees.
• Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT): Remember that claims for certain items (including laptop computers, personal digital assistants and tools of trade) purchased after 13 May 08 must only be made on eligible work-related items.
• Pay-roll tax: Reductions will apply to many state and territory pay-roll tax rates.
• Stamp duty or land tax: Check if these reductions apply in your state/territory.

For further information on any of the federal changes above, please contact the Tax Office. For further details of changes to pay-roll tax, stamp duty or land tax in your state or territory, please contact your State or Territory Revenue Office.

In 2008-09, most states and territories will continue to reduce or phase out pay-roll tax. There will also be a reduction of stamp duty, land tax or transfer duty in some states. Some of the new business initiatives to be introduced in the new financial year include:

• continued assistance for apprentices and trainees
• programs to address skills shortages
• innovation and investment programs
• environmental initiatives.

To find out which changes apply to your business and when, see your state or territory budget papers below:

• Australian Capital Territory 2008-09 Budget
• New South Wales 2008-09 Budget
• Northern Territory 2008-09 Budget
• Queensland 2008-09 Budget 
• South Australian 2008-09 Budget 
• Tasmanian 2008-09 Budget
• Victorian 2008-09 Budget
• Western Australian 2008-09 Budget.

For information on federal government budget business initiatives see our Budget 2008-09 feature

Real Estate agents are now at the top of the hit list with this increasing threat because they advertise properties online. There is now an alarming increase of phishing emails presenting themselves as genuine property buyers, domain registration renewals or banking or account scams. Most agents have enough street smarts to pick up on scams fairly quickly but they can waste time and do still pose a threat.

 Here are a few tips to better manage this increasing threat:

Mail Washer Download a free trial version of a program called Mail Washer. This is a great program because for one it saves you time by automatically flagging known spam from its international database and secondly it also gives you the opportunity to decide on the legitimacy of each email before you download it to your mail program. You can easily (select Friend List) if the email is legitimate for next time. Mail Washer also has an automatic bounce feature that will send back the red flagged emails to the sender which in turn leads them to believe your email address doesn’t exist. You can easily download a free trial of Mail Washer here

Email Forms I still see many real estate agents websites using their email address. Don’t use your email address on your website; replace it with a more secure email form. This can reduce the amount of unwanted emails, especially spam. Scam emails can also be reduced and it stops them from inserting malicious or fraudulent live links on the email. Be aware though that some scammers will still fill in the form in some cases. When using an email form, make certain not to reply to the sender unless you are absolutely certain it is legitimate as once you have replied they will have your email address and along with it, the greater opportunity to contact you or, attach links in their reply.

Never Follow Links If you want to access an internet account website, use a bookmarked link or type the address in yourself: NEVER follow a link in an email.

Harmful Websites Beware of free websites and downloads. They may install harmful programs without you knowing about it.

Fake Websites Check the website address carefully. Scammers often set up fake websites with very similar addresses, especially for bank scams. 

Personal Information It’s a given now days never enter your personal, credit card or online account information on a website that you are not certain is genuine.

Payment Details via Email Never send your personal, credit card or online account details through an email.

Auto Complete Software Do not use software on your computer that auto-completes online forms. This can give internet scammers easy access to your personal and credit card details.

To get started, visit the business.gov.au Events calendar and search by your state, date or event category. For further information or to register for business events in your area, contact the administering agencies directly.

The problem with putting off creative thinking until the time is right is that this assumes creativity can only emerge when, and if, the barriers are overcome. But there will always be barriers, which means there will always be an excuse not to innovate.

So what can you do about it? Be continually innovative in spite of the barriers! Here are six ways to stimulate innovation and creativity in your business.

1. Be open and receptive to new ideas
How many times have you been told a great idea and before the giver can finish the sentence you stop them with “oh, yeah, I’ve tried that”, without seeing how their approach might be different or how things may have changed since you last tried it?

Being open to new ideas implies that every idea can be discussed, challenged and enhanced, regardless of its origin. New ideas can come from customers, suppliers, partners or many other sources. The idea is the hero, not the person.

Every idea that comes your way should be seriously considered, no matter who came up with it or how similar it seems to something you’ve tried before.

2. Continuously experiment
Progress requires a regular flow of new ideas that are then tested and experimented with. Just as soloists need to deal with work flow and cash flow, you also need to have an ideas flow. Write down every idea that comes to you, no matter how trivial or unlikely it seems at the time. You can later sift through these ideas to find the ones that are worth developing further.

3. Take risks and allow yourself to occasionally fail
Trying new ideas involves taking risks and not all of the ideas will work. But if you don’t take any risks at all, you pass up the chance of finding a great idea that might break new ground for your business. So to never fail could be a sign that you are not taking enough risks! This may sound counterintuitive, but how can you know whether your current approach is the best way unless you have tested it against different approaches?

4. Have fun
Fun is part of the journey of realising your largely untapped creative potential. This involves a broader definition of fun - it’s not just the fun you have at a party or down at the beach but also the fun of trying things, taking risks, pushing yourself and achieving goals.

5. Retain a focus on results
All the above are important points, but innovation should still be set against the backdrop of producing results including meeting deadlines and budgets, staying fit and healthy and leading a balanced life.

6. Operate on the edge of chaos
Do you work in an environment that allows you to tolerate and work within the tensions and paradoxes that surface? You can occasionally fail as part of a focus on results. You can have fun while being serious about your work and you can make room for innovation and creativity at the same time as running an efficient and productive business.

This article is adapted from Innovation Report 2007: What is the biggest barrier to innovation? Your Culture by Dr Ken Hudson and Kate Tribe. Email to be sent a PDF of the full report.

Kate Tribe enables decision makers with limited time and resources to be clear-headed about the direction of their business. Drive change through meaningful data that solves the puzzle of understanding your tribe.

Your decisions are only as good as the information you work with. To increase the quality of this information, you need to ask relevant questions to the right people at the right times in the right way.

This article provides some starter tips on how to ask smart questions in client briefs, and is continued next month.

Get high quality information from the start
Don’t blame clients for not giving you the right information. Getting high quality information is like fishing; fish don’t just come to you, you need to bait, hook and pull them in.

The information you need from clients to make smart decisions won’t just flow to you. You must cast a line out and hook it. It’s your job as a soloist to obtain the right information by asking smart questions.

Plan your questions in advance
Your objective is to get hold of all the information you need so that you can proceed and perform at your very best for your client.

You’ll need to do this when speaking to prospects, when being briefed by clients, during and after projects.

When you get the right information, an amazing thing happens. Both you and your client get more clarity. You can usually see the end result more clearly and the steps you’ll need to take to get there. Everything feels easier. You both feel more in control of the situation, and therefore you tend to feel happier and perform better.

These feelings will resonate across to your client too. When smart questions are asked in the right way, both of you feel stronger and more certain from the outset.

So what are the smart questions?
These steps will get you started:

1. What am I trying to achieve for this client? Write this at the top of a blank page.

2. Draw 3 columns underneath: A, B and C

3. In column A, list: What decisions am I going to need to make along the way?

4. In column B, list: What facts will I need to know in order to make these decisions? There’s likely to be many.

5. In column C, list: What questions must I ask to obtain these facts?

You can then take each fact, and find out what question it’s ‘married’ to.

This planning should help to increase your clarity. Most people don’t give this any consideration and then wonder why they come unstuck.

But this alone isn’t enough! You can’t just fire off your list of questions to your client. You need to gauge who to ask, when and how to cast your questions out correctly. Get these wrong and the whole process can flop.

We’ll look at how to avoid that in my follow up article next month.

Have you struggled on a job because you didn’t ask smart questions find out enough information at the start? Or have you faced frustrations in client briefs when gathering information?

If you have any stories or comments please share them below.

Mark Moore is the Director of Excelerated Performance International. He helps people to close the skills and knowledge gaps that they face, much faster, and manage themselves more effectively in order to achieve their business goals.

The REIV has welcomed a commitment by the State Government to review sale of land laws to ensure they allow for and protect all parties involved in the emerging market for online property sales.

An example of an an online auction site can be seen here at 2Bid2

There has been a lot of conflicting media attention about the current real estate market in Australia and views seem to differ greatly depending on what branch of the tree they are sitting on.

I came across this piece of news which I believe presents a balanced and not so negative take on where our property market is currently positioned and heading towards for 2009.

You are the best judge of your own market and we would appreciate your feedback:

Do you agree with the views of this video?
What’s your take on your local market?
Register to comment

Lupra Lupra.com is a non-profit website that contains hundreds of articles about doing business online and many other business-related issues.

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Regards,

Craig Honeyman | Real Estate Guide.com.au