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If you think the rental crisis doesn’t affect you, you’re wrong. Maybe you think you’re not affected because you own your own house, and you’re not a landlord. Wrong. New Zealand’s rental crisis isn’t only causing homelessness and poverty, it’s dragging down wages, stifling innovation and suppressing productivity for the whole country.

In a bid to ease New Zealand’s housing crisis, the Government has introduced new legislation that will impact current owners of residential investment property and new purchases made on or after 27 March 2021.

New Zealand needs more houses. Yet despite the simplicity of that goal, it's been impossible to keep up with demand. This problem has persisted through both National and Labour Governments – several of each. As much as we might tinker around with the demand side of the equation, putting LVR restrictions up and down and tweaking interest rates, the gravity of the problem clearly lies with the supply side and our mindsets.

A major change has been made to how NFPs can claim GST credits on their assets.

Last year this Government delivered its first fiscal plan – the Wellbeing Budget. Fire up the money cannon, because 2020 is going to be the year of the Recovery Budget.

The COVID-19 tax measures should help businesses when they are hurting now. So why not allow businesses to carry their losses back instead of forward?

Natural disasters, pandemics and other black swan events cause significant stress or distress for many businesses. Each organisation will face a different set of circumstances – however cash management should be a the centre of everything a business does to navigate this unprecedented event, regardless of the challenges it’s experiencing.

International Valuation Standards (IVS) 2019 have been updated and include a new chapter, 'IVS 220 Non-Financial Liabilities' as part of the intangible asset standards. Non-financial liabilities require a non-cash performance obligation to provide goods or services, including deferred revenue obligations, warranties, environmental liabilities and loyalty program liabilities. IVS 2019 is available to IVSC subscribers here .

In October 2018, the IASB issued ‘Definition of a Business’ making amendments to IFRS 3 ‘Business Combinations’. The amendments are a response to feedback received from the post-implementation review of IFRS 3 (‘the Standard’). They clarify the definition of a business, with the aim of helping entities to determine whether a transaction should be accounted for as an asset acquisition or a business combination.

Despite dominating the political agenda for much of the year, tax was barely mentioned in the budget. That doesn’t mean the work there is over, writes Greg Thompson of Grant Thornton New Zealand.

Budget 2019: Unless we can find some way of taxing wealth as well as incomes, New Zealand is headed for an intergenerational economic meltdown, writes Grant Thornton tax partner Murray Brewer.

Now that we know what the Wellbeing Budget is, the question is how we can create the right political and social environment to support it, says Grant Thornton’s Barry Baker.

The requirements of Public Benefit Entities International Public Sector Accounting Standards (PBE IPSAS) for Not-for-Profit reporting entities are continuing to change. Navigating the Changes to PBE IPSAS for Not-for-Profits gives chief financial officers, and audit and risk committee members a high-level awareness of these recent changes to PBE IPSAS. It covers both brand new standards, and changes that have been made to existing ones.

To achieve a successful sale of a business and extract its maximum value, it’s critical that the planning process begins well in advance.

Gender diversity in business leadership is a no-lose proposition, yet progress is still slow. Grant Thornton International has been surveying thousands of businesses annually since 2004 about the levels of gender diversity in leadership roles globally.

The slow pace of change in gender diversity at a leadership level indicates there needs to be a shift in NZ’s business culture.