Medical, dental and allied health practices.

Practitioners earn well and are taxed accordingly, which is why the industry has always attracted structuring advice of varying quality. The last few years have raised the stakes: state revenue offices have pursued payroll tax on payments to practitioners, the ATO has published its position on how professional practice profits may be allocated, and the personal services income rules remain the first question on every contractor arrangement. The structure that was fine a decade ago may not be fine now.

We work with general practitioners, specialists, dentists and allied health practitioners on the Gold Coast and across Australia: practice owners, associates and contractors, and the service entities that sit between them. The goal is a structure that is defensible on the day it is examined, a compliance cycle that does not interrupt clinical work, and a tax plan made while there is still a year to act in.

The situations we see

A practice that collects patient fees centrally and pays practitioners their share, now wondering whether that flow of money makes the practice a payroll tax employer. A service trust charging a service fee to the practitioners’ entities that was set years ago and has never been tested against the ATO’s benchmarks. A contractor doctor billing through a company where the personal services income rules attribute the income back to the individual regardless, so the structure costs money and saves none. Profits split with a spouse or family trust in a way the ATO’s practice-profit guidance now places in a higher-risk zone. A dentist buying into a practice with equipment, fit-out and goodwill in the one price and no plan for how each is treated. Superannuation and insurance left to the practice manager, and a Division 7A loan to the practitioner building quietly inside the service company.

What we do

Map the money. Who bills, who collects, who pays whom, under what agreement, and whether the documents match what actually happens. From that we test the three questions that matter most: the payroll tax position on practitioner payments in the relevant state, noting that the rules and reliefs differ between states and have moved recently; the personal services income position for each practitioner; and whether the practice-profit allocation sits where the ATO’s guidance says it should. Then we design or repair the structure so each answer holds, with service fees set and documented on a commercial basis.

Compliance runs on a cycle that respects a clinician’s week: the ledger reviewed so GST-free medical services and taxable service fees are coded correctly, superannuation for staff checked, instalments reviewed, and the practice’s position summarised in a page you can read between patients. Planning covers owner remuneration across wages, trust distributions and super, equipment and fit-out timing, the purchase or sale of a practice interest, and the long-run view on succession or exit, including the small business CGT concessions where they apply.

Where to start

Thirty minutes with a partner. Bring the practice agreement, the service agreement if there is one, and the last set of financials. We will tell you where the structure is sound, where it is exposed, and what we would do about it, in order.