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Business valuations
We offer expert valuation advice in transactions, regulatory and administrative matters, and matters subject to dispute – valuing businesses, shares and intangible assets in a wide range of industries.
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Capital markets
You need corporate finance specialists experienced in international capital markets on your side if you’re buying or selling financial securities.
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Complex and international services
Our experience of multi-jurisdictional insolvencies coupled with our international reputation allows us to deliver the best possible outcome for all stakeholders.
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Corporate insolvency
Our corporate investigation and recovery teams can help you manage insolvency situations and facilitate the best outcome.
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Debt advisory
An optimal funding structure for your organisation presents unprecedented opportunities, but achieving this can be difficult without a trusted advisor.
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Expert witness
Our expert witnesses analyse, interpret, summarise and present complex financial and business-related issues which are understandable and properly supported.
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Forensic and investigation services
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Independent business review
Is your business viable? Will it remain viable in the future? A thorough independent business review can help your organisation answer these fundamental questions.
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IT forensics
Effective ESI analysis is integral to the success of your business. Our IT forensics experts have the technical expertise to identify, preserve and interrogate electronic data.
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Raising finance
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Relationship property services
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Restructuring and turnaround
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Transaction advisory
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Corporate tax
Grant Thornton can identify tax issues, risks and opportunities in your organisation and implement strategies to improve your bottom line.
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Employment tax
Grant Thornton’s advisers can help you with PAYE (payroll tax), Kiwisaver, fringe benefits tax (FBT), student loans, global mobility services, international tax
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Global mobility services
Our team can help expatriates and their employers deal with tax and employment matters both in New Zealand and overseas. With the correct planning advice, employee allowances and benefits may be structured to avoid double taxation and achieve tax savings.
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GST
GST has the potential to become a minefield and can be expensive when it goes wrong. Our technical knowledge can help you minimise the negative impact of GST
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International tax
International tax rules are undergoing their biggest change in a generation. Tax authorities around the world are increasingly vigilant, especially when it comes to global operations.
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Research and Development
R&D tax incentives are often underused and misunderstood – is your business maximising opportunities for making claims?
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Tax compliance
Our advisers help clients manage the critical issue of compliance across accountancy regulations, corporation law and tax. We also offer business and wealth advisory services, which means we can provide a seamless and tax-effective offering to our clients.
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Transfer pricing
Tax authorities are demanding transparency in international arrangements. We businesses comply with regulations and use transfer pricing as a strategic planning tool.
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Audit methodology
Our five step audit methodology offers a high quality service wherever you are in the world and includes planning, risk assessment, testing internal controls, substantive testing, and concluding and reporting
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Audit technology
We apply our audit methodology with an integrated set of software tools known as the Voyager suite. Our technology has been developed to produce quality audits that are effective and efficient.
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Financial reporting advisory
Our financial reporting advisers have the expertise to help you deal with the constantly evolving regulatory environment.
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Business architecture
Our business architects help businesses with disruptive conditions, business expansion and competitive challenges; the deployment of your strategy is critical to success.
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Cloud services
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Internal audit
Our internal audits deliver independent assurance over key controls within your riskiest processes, proving what works and what doesn’t and recommending improvements.
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IT advisory
Our hands on product experience, extensive functional knowledge and industry insights help clients solve complex IT and technology issues
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IT privacy and security
IT privacy and security should support your business strategy. Our pragmatic approach focuses on reducing cyber security risks specific to your organisation
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Organisational & cultural change
The key to sustainable and future growth is a unified organisation operating within a strong cultural context, where transparency and communication are the priority for Kaimahi, and where visible leadership means walking the talk – but where does that journey begin?
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Payroll assurance
Our specialist payroll assurance team can conduct a review of your payroll system configuration and processes, and then help you and your team to implement any necessary recalculations.
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PCI DSS
Our information security specialists are approved Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs) that have been qualified by the PCI Security Standards Council to independently assess merchants and service providers.
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Process improvement
As your organisation grows in size and complexity, processes that were once enabling often become cumbersome and inefficient. To maintain growth, your business must remain flexible, agile and profitable
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Procurement/supply chain
Procurement and supply chain inputs will often dominate your balance sheet and constantly evolve for organisations to remain competitive and meet changing customer requirements
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Project assurance
Major programmes and projects expose you to significant financial and reputational risk throughout their life cycle. Don’t let these risks become a reality.
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Risk management
We understand that growing companies need to establish robust internal controls, and use information technology to effectively mitigate risk.
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Robotic process automation (RPA)
RPA is emerging as the most sophisticated form of automation used to help businesses become more agile and remain competitive in the face of today’s ongoing digital disruption.
Lifting the lid on the R&D black hole
The Government’s release of a consultation document on taxation issues associated with business-related research and development (R&D) reflects its determination to lift the lid on black hole expenditure, a somewhat colourful term for business costs that do not qualify for tax deductions.
As the Science and Innovation Minister, Steven Joyce, has noted, the current tax rules can deter businesses from investing in this area, largely because they may not be entitled to claim a deduction for all R&D expenditure.
The Government says it wants to shed light on the issue to create a level of certainty for businesses that doesn’t exist under the current regime. It is particularly interested in providing clarity to the businesses it labels as innovative and credits for driving New Zealand’s economic recovery and growth.
It will be interesting to see how businesses engage with this process. It could be assumed that those involved with SMEs - which make up 97.2% of New Zealand businesses, employ 30.2% of all employees and are responsible for an estimated 27.8% of New Zealand’s Gross Domestic Product - do not lie awake at night stressing about their R&D spend.
But one might expect our larger businesses to be more engaged with the process.
Minister Joyce and his Cabinet colleague, Revenue Minister Todd McClay, want to build on the initiatives that featured in this year’s Budget and related to legal and administrative costs relating to patents and plant variety rights; costs of obtaining certain fixed life resource consents; the costs of abandoned resource consents; the costs of paying dividends (but not the dividends themselves); and certain costs of running a public company including annual listing and meeting fees.
These were a starting point for the Government; there is still some ground to cover before New Zealand businesses can enjoy the same tax advantages their Australian counterparts have enjoyed since 2005 when the Government increased the range of deductions available to businesses.
Business interest groups here have been lobbying for similar changes and the Government appears to be listening and interested in making changes.
Ministers Joyce and McClay are seeking specific feedback on depreciation of capitalised development expenditure, depreciation of software developed by businesses for their own use, and tax deductions for capitalised development expenditure that fails to produce a successful asset.
It’s this last point, in particular, that is worthy of attention. The Government is right when it says the current tax structure can curb enthusiasm for R&D and Minister Joyce should be seeking ways to stimulate R&D given his responsibility for the Science and Innovation portfolio.
But it’s Minister McClay’s revenue responsibilities that are the driving factor as the Government seeks to remedy a system that can create farcical situations with companies persisting with failing R&D projects simply to avoid a black hole expenditure situation.
Flushing out dead-end R&D projects would be one outcome of the changes proposed by the Government. Or, as the Government put it when it announced the release of the consultation document, addressing a situation which “can result in investors putting their money into less productive areas of the economy because of a perceived tax disadvantage with some research and development ventures”.
And, understandably, it is these productive areas of the economy that are attractive to the Government, which has been tinkering with the tax system since it came to power. So far, this tinkering has undeniably produced positive results. Revenue generated from taxes has increased and the Government tells us it is on track to returning the economy to a surplus.
Since the last election, the Government has promised to raise the level of innovation in New Zealand. The move to include innovation as a key platform of the Business Growth Agenda was a step in the right direction.
And it should be noted that businesses are investing in R&D – tax incentives or not. According to Statistics New Zealand, businesses spent $1.2 billion on R&D in 2012 – an increase of almost 25% since 2010.
But, as the Government appears to be acknowledging, until further changes are made to the tax system, R&D will continue to be driven largely by financial risk aversion. An interesting situation for a country that, generally, likes to think of itself as a risk taker.
Further enquiries, please contact:
Murray Brewer
Grant Thornton New Zealand Partner, Tax
M +64 (0)9 308 2586
E murray.brewer@nz.gt.com