The Corporations Law is one of those magic pieces of legislation which has the ability to conceive and deliver a brand new “person” (recognised by law as having all the legal powers that you have excluding of course the power to reproduce J, and having the power to live indefinitely) in a matter of minutes. This “person” is known as a company.

Best of all this “person” is blessed with a limited liability protection. The liability of the owners of a company is limited to the amount of capital they risked for the venture by purchasing shares in the company.

This is so so much better than operating a business as a sole trader where the liability for anything going wrong in your business is unlimited – in other words, you could be taken to the cleaners if things did not work out as planned.

To access the benefits of such a structure, you must ensure that your business structure is a limited liability company or that the trustee of your trust (unit, family or discretionary) is a company.

With the ownership of a limited liability company in your business comes great responsibility. You must:

• Maintain a Register of Officers;
• Maintain a Register of Members;
• Prepare documentation and minutes to record changes in the above Registers;
• Advise ASIC of changes to the basic details of the company relating to members, officers, principal place of business, registered office, name change, deregistration etc;
• Have a Registered Office which must be open for at least 3 hours per day where anyone can visit to review the above registers (you can tell these laws were created in the pre-internet and pre-search days);
• Confirm an Annual Review of your basic records (which excludes financial information for most private companies);
• Pay an annual tax called the Annual Review Fee;
• Ensure you have proper minutes to document changes in and contracts made by the company;
• And much more.

Use the experts in the game. Let us know how we can help you manage your compliance responsibilities well and on a timely basis.