Income Tax - Westcourt

Income Tax at Westcourt

Most tax outcomes are set before year-end—when you sign a contract, fund the business, pay owners, acquire assets, or change the group structure. Westcourt’s income tax law advisory service helps private businesses and their owners make those decisions with clear options, technical rigour, and clean execution.

We have a single focus: private business. Our partners bring deep income tax expertise built through long-term private business work, continuous technical development, and strong professional networks. We regularly present at tax conventions and technical forums, and where a matter needs deeper bench strength we coordinate with trusted specialists across legal, valuation, finance, and specialist tax fields.

At Westcourt, the common income tax issues we manage—often high-impact and overlooked—include:

Division 7A around owner drawings and related-party funding (loan documentation, repayments, and dividend strategies).
Family Trust distribution outcomes (strategy, family participation, entitlements, resolutions, and record discipline).
CGT and exit readiness (cost base integrity, restructure pathways, CGT discount, and small business CGT concession eligibility planning).
Character and timing issues that drive unexpected tax results (revenue versus capital, prepayments, depreciation, provisions, bad debts, and asset write-offs).

Franking credits (mismatch, maximisation, streaming and reconstruction).
Negative gearing strategies (deductibility and substantiation of interest and holding costs, redraw impacts, loss utilisation and quarantining issues, and structuring choices—individual vs trust vs company).
Group structuring to separate trading risk from family investment assets (SMSFs, companies and unit trusts).
Practical tax governance (Next 5,000/Justified Trust) to make tax positions repeatable, reduce rework, and avoid year-end surprises.

No Surprises.

The Westcourt Tax Advisory Method is designed to reduce surprises, support better decisions, deliver more predictable after-tax outcomes, and provide a defensible position if the matter is reviewed. Every engagement is designed to produce usable outputs. This typically includes clear advice setting out the options, our recommendation, the technical basis and key risks; an implementation pack with a step plan, required documents, and the accounting and tax actions needed to set the position; an evidence checklist showing what should be retained on file and who is responsible for each item; and, where relevant, an annual or quarterly review cadence to keep recurring positions on track.

Service levels are built around accountability—partner-led work on material positions and transactions, scope agreed upfront with decision-focused deliverables, and practical implementation support so the outcome is executed correctly rather than left as a memo.

If you have a refinancing, restructure, acquisition, or exit decision coming up, engage Westcourt before you sign or move cash. Book a Tax Advisory meeting to identify the top issues, prioritise actions, and set the workplan.