Financial Planning for Commercial Divers

We’re invested in your long-term success. What we do is personal, and we take it personally.

Your financial decisions connect, so we consider the parts of your financial life that are relevant to the advice you need:

• Property & Investing
• Career & Income
• Tax Strategy
• Insurance & Protecting Your Family
• Super & SMSF
• Wealth & Investments
• Life Events & Changes
• Business & Wealth
• Legacy & Future Wealth
• Retirement Planning

This is how we help you make decisions today with your longer-term goals in view.

Everybody’s situation is different, so we listen first, understand what matters to you and explain your options clearly before we make a recommendation.

A business may have to. The ATO treats a contractor as an employee for super if more than half the contract’s dollar value is for their labour, payment doesn’t depend on a set result and the work can’t be delegated. An ABN doesn’t settle it, but a contract with your own company, trust or partnership means the hirer doesn’t have to pay.

Dive gear or other non-labour items in your price can change the sum, so it helps if labour and gear are detailed separately. An accountant or the ATO can confirm where you stand, and we can plan your super with you around what’s paid and what’s yours to add.

Your accountant and financial adviser bring different expertise to the same decisions. Your accountant can advise on tax reporting, structures and consequences; we help you plan how cashflow, debt, super, investments and protection work towards your goals. We can coordinate before important decisions.

What an accountant does

• Prepares and lodges tax returns, BAS and financial statements
• Advises on tax structures such as companies, trusts and partnerships
• Manages bookkeeping, payroll and ATO compliance
• Provides tax advice on the consequences of a transaction

What a financial adviser does

• Sets a long term strategy across retirement, investing and cash flow
• Builds wealth from early in a working life, starting with cash flow, a first home and super
• Recommends specific super funds, investments and personal insurance
• Operates under an Australian Financial Services Licence, which is required to give personal advice on financial products
• Handles retirement planning, Centrelink and aged care strategy, and estate planning considerations

Professional roles and authorisations matter. We provide financial advice within our authorisations and work with your accountant for specialist tax advice and lodgements.

Where they work together

• Tax position. Your accountant confirms your marginal rate, deductions and carried forward losses, which shapes decisions on super contributions, investment structures and the timing of asset sales.
• Business and entity structures. Your accountant advises on the structure itself and your financial adviser works within it for investments, insurance and succession planning.
• Cash flow. Your accountant’s figures can help us understand what’s available for debt repayment, protection and longer-term goals.
• Before key decisions. We can coordinate with your accountant on contributions, asset sales and other material choices in time to consider relevant tax consequences.

Where the national award system applies, your employer’s industry and your duties generally decide it, rather than your job title. One industry award covers underwater services to industry, with separate sections for inshore and offshore divers, and employers in other industries can sit under other awards.

A day rate doesn’t settle the question by itself, and Fair Work is the place to check your award. We can build your budget and super plan with you from the pay you receive.

A plan can start from a full year of your income, rather than your strongest month. Points to work through:

• A buffer sized in weeks of household spending
• Allowances and depth payments kept out of the base budget
• Tax set aside from each invoice, with an accountant estimating the amount
• Any minimum hours in an income protection policy, if you hold one

Income protection is generally for illness or injury rather than losing a job, so gaps between jobs are planned with savings. We can build that budget with you.

Workplace safety rules can require a diver to hold a current certificate of medical fitness, generally renewed yearly, and a doctor can set conditions on the type of diving work. Questions about your fitness to dive sit with that doctor.

The financial side is a plan that allows for a change in the work open to you, without predicting one: your savings, a budget that doesn’t depend on one type of job, and how much of your income relies on dive work. We can build that with you, along with your super and any cover you hold. If your medical isn’t renewed or comes with new conditions, we can help you understand what that could mean for your plan.

It can come from more than one place, depending on your work and what you hold:

• Any leave, if you’re employed and have it
• Workers compensation, through a scheme, and each scheme sets who qualifies. Offshore and maritime work can involve a different scheme
• Income protection, if you hold it, which can pay part of your income after a waiting period, subject to the policy’s terms and exclusions and the insurer’s assessment
• Savings, for the time in between

We can plan with you how these fit together, and the scheme or insurer decides any claim.

A financial adviser starts by reading what the cover says: the amounts, the definitions, the cost and the job on record. Default cover through super is for a set amount, so it might not match your needs.

From there, we can go through options with you from the insurers willing to consider your work, beside your super, savings and goals. The insurer decides on any application.

ADAS, the diver accreditation scheme, says onshore supervisors need evidence of working as an occupational diver, with a set amount of time and experience and an employer’s support. Offshore certification has its own process. Points to plan:

• Course costs, and what you’d live on while you build the experience
• How your pay and any allowances could change
• Any cover you hold: how it describes your work, and how a TPD or income protection definition may read the new duties

We can cost the move with you before you enrol.

Yes. Retirement planning for dive work starts with how long you’d like to keep diving, and whether supervising, inspection or training is part of the later years. If you’re on contract, super may be yours to plan, unless a business has to pay it.

We’d build the plan on super and savings, with any gear or dive business as an addition, as a sale isn’t certain. You can read more about our retirement advice.

We’re a national service, so you can meet with us by phone or video from anywhere in Australia. We also have offices in three cities:

• Sydney: offices in Sydney CBD, Parramatta, Seven Hills, Ingleburn and Narellan, servicing areas including the City of Sydney, Eastern Suburbs, Inner West, North Shore, Northern Beaches, Sutherland Shire, Blacktown, Liverpool, Campbelltown and all surrounding suburbs.
• Melbourne: our St Kilda Road office, servicing areas including the City of Melbourne, Port Phillip, Boroondara, Monash, Casey, Wyndham and all surrounding suburbs.
• Brisbane: our Eagle Street office, servicing areas including Brisbane City, Moreton Bay, Ipswich, Logan, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and all surrounding suburbs.

Yes. Trainees, divers on a first day rate and owners of small dive businesses are all welcome to start with us, from where things are today.

There’s no cost for the initial conversation. Any advice after that is a paid service, with its scope and fee agreed with you in writing first.

Useful things to have with you are pay records or invoices, a tax return, statements from each super fund, insurance papers and details of borrowing, if you have them.