Three years in!

AKL Tax turns three this month. Officially, anyway.

It’s gone fast. Seems like only yesterday we were celebrating the terrible twos. One year on, and we’re out of teething and charging forward into the world!

We’ve done some great work, for some really cool clients. The business is now so much more than a side hustle on the dining room table in a Cronulla apartment, which is quite crazy to think about.

So, what’s changed in the last 12 months?

1)     We doubled our headcount of awesome staff who aren’t me – who hopefully are enjoying it and don’t hate their boss any more than is customary in the industry. Thank you Lily and Nathan.

2)     An actual office – with hopefully a newer (and more permanent) office to come shortly. Watch this space.

3)     My hairline and grey hair coverage. I should note that this has nothing to do with work – I blame my 2.5 kids for this.

4)     A clear path as to where AKL Tax is heading, especially over the next 12-24 months.

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One major change on the AKL Tax front, is that we will be parting ways with our formal relationship with SBO Financial in a few months’ time. Both businesses have grown quickly to the stage where they require their own full-time focus, which is a great problem to have.

I say it’s only the end of a formal relationship, as I can only say great things about the SBO Team, which we aim to stay connected with on some projects moving forward. Jason, Vanessa and the team have created an absolute winner in their space, and it’s been a privilege working with not only them, but also their team and with their clients.

Most importantly, the entire SBO group are great people to hang out with, which was a bigger godsend than I realised in my early days (being a sole trader for a year, does weird things to your sanity levels). Their staff retreats are also something I hope to emulate at some stage down the line – Twin Waters espresso martinis in particular!

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So - what this does mean for AKL Tax? Basically, it means we will be focussing on growing our current clients, in combination with implementing a targeted growth strategy. The three years of building AKL Tax has shown that we have clients who don’t hate what we do, along with not hating how we do it. Because of this, we want more of them!

Our growth focus will be in the following areas in FY25 (it feels weird even saying 2024 at the moment, so saying FY25 feels even weirder!):

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Family groups (with a particular focus in the HNW space).

For those who are asking what a “HNW group” looks like – it’s not really a dollar figure, but you’re likely in the following space:

1) Family trusts aren’t a prerequisite, but if you don’t have one, you might be thinking about establishing one. Especially if you’ve now had kids and want to figure out why your parents “sent” you income when you were 19 while at university (not me – if my parents have a trust, I don’t know about it).

2) Have a rental property or are looking to borrow against your first property to purchase a second one and need some guidance.

3) There’s been a big cash event in your life, which could be a great thing (exit from a business, cashing of options), or something that has simply happened and you don’t know what to do next (big ones unfortunately are inheritances in this space, especially amongst our client group).

4) Same goes for having an SMSF, or looking to establish an SMSF, for a variety of different reasons (subject to obtaining financial advice, of course – we have great partners in this space, who we’ll happily refer you to). We’ve picked up heaps of SMSF work from the budget players in this space, who appear to drop the ball at anything even slightly out of the norm.

These client subgroups above have grown exponentially year-on-year, exclusively by word of mouth, so it’s not only a show of faith from our current clients, but also hopefully a marker of the quality of our work so far.

I need to stress, you don’t need to be Logan Roy to be in this category (or even close) – but you might have a plan in your head before coming to us, and maybe are just looking for us to guide you along. Or if you have no idea, that’s also ok – tax is complex!

Tech Employees (particularly those who have staff equity)

If you live in Australia and you have RSUs, I’m coming for you. We have heaps of you already, but there’s definitely a gap in this space (in particular upon an exit or other liquidity event), which we think we can do better than the bigger players.

We’ve got a few projects in the pipeline in this space, which I can’t wait to share more about soon, however in short, my aim is to help with launching each client in this group, armed with a plan and a fistful of tech stock, into the above HNW client group.

On that note - #atlassian #canva #rsu #esop #taylorswift #erastour #workthealgorithm

Professional Services Firms

Financial planners. Mortgage brokers. Lawyers. Barristers. Other professional service businesses.

You all hate doing your own payroll, bookkeeping and tax compliance. You’ve told me this.

You also love long lunches. You’ve shown me this.

We’ll get along well.

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Anyone who starts their own business can attest to the long nights, the stressful slow periods, and the general rollercoaster of emotions that come with it. That said, I’ve been lucky that there have been countless more positive moments than the alternative, which makes it all worth it.

Thank you everyone for the three years to date – if you’ve read this far, you’re either a client, a potential client, a fellow tax gremlin, or a family member. You’ve all got us here, so thanks again.

Until next year’s gratuitous birthday post

AKL