Self-assessment

• Leaky valves in people with MR and TR can reduce the amount of blood being pumped through the body and make the heart work harder than it should.
• As a result, MR and TR can lead to other cardiovascular issues as well as severely limit a person's quality of life.
• "For more than two decades, Abbott has continued to evolve and expand its minimally invasive treatment options for mitral and tricuspid regurgitation.
• TriClip is approved for use in more than 50 countries, including in Europe and Canada, and is an investigational device in the U.S.

• program is expected to reduce cost overhead and redundancy of device security audits with an OCP Community developed per device security checklist, and advance the security posture of device hardware and firmware components across the supply chain.
• It all starts with the OCP Community developing a standardized device specific audit checklist and criteria for selecting 3rd party device security review auditors.
• Security is the underlying foundation which makes OCP core tenets of efficiency, openness, scale, impact and sustainability possible," said Steve Helvie, VP Emerging Markets at the Open Compute Project Foundation.
• (3) advance the security posture of device hardware and firmware components, through iterative refinement of review areas, testing scopes and reporting requirements.

• Why do I suddenly owe tax this year?
• This is one of the most Googled questions in Australia right now.
• Ever since Australia’s transition to self-assessment for income tax returns, we have been primed to expect an annual refund.
• The other, the focus of this piece – and it applies to many more people – is the end of the A$11 billion Low and Middle Income Tax Offset, known as LMITO.

LMITO was for higher rather than lower earners

• The benefit wasn’t available to really low earners (who were eligible for a separate offset) and it was available to people who earned a good deal more than middle incomes.
• A taxpayer on $90,000 and eligible for full LMITO would be in the top 28% of earners.

‘Temporary’, then extended, then extended again

• But in the 2020 budget, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg brought forward Stage 2 from 2022 to 2020 and kept LMITO in place to provide an “additional benefit”.
• In 2021 Frydenberg extended LMITO for yet another year to give recipients what he called a “further benefit” that would help secure the economic recovery.

Now its gone, tax bills are $1,500 higher

• If there would have otherwise been a tax bill, it would be up to $1,500 bigger.
• If there would have otherwise been a tax refund it would be up to $1,500 smaller – enough to turn many tax refunds into tax bills.
• That means millions who have submitted their forms this year are getting bills in place of refunds, and millions more are getting refunds that are smaller or bills that are bigger.

A flawed idea, at odds with advice

• Those that are means-tested (like LMITO) distort effective marginal tax rates.
• At today’s wage rates that would be a tax-free threshold of $36,000, freeing 1.3 million taxpayers from the need to pay tax.

Where to from here?

• Reaching out to the Tax Office is the key because they have tools to support you, including payment plans.
• Getting in touch rather than waiting for the Tax Office to chase you shows you are willing to comply.
• It can help to reach out to a registered tax agent if you need help to get back on track.

• Contractors in the defense industrial base (DIB) understand the risk but haven’t implemented the necessary security controls, according to a study conducted by Merrill Research and commissioned by CyberSheath , the largest CMMC managed service vendor.
• The second edition of the comprehensive, independent study of the DIB’s cybersecurity posture shows the average Supplier Performance Risk System (SPRS) score is a woeful -15, far short of the 110 score required by the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS).
• DFARS was signed into law in 2017 and is in over 1 million contracts today, but adherence to compliance requirements remains low.
• “This year’s survey shows we haven’t made much progress in protecting military secrets, and until the DIB is compelled to do so, our security posture will remain stagnant.”
  The study shows contractors pick and choose which areas they’ll take action on.