[Innercode]

As a tax practitioner working with software companies and their owners I have come to the conclusion that the Australian tax system is very hit and miss. The base rates for corporate tax and capital gains tax are high. There are some real tax traps laying around such as Division 7A which can inadvertently cause major issues.

However for startups, the tax system can work very well for you if you make full use of it. The recent changes to the R&D Tax Incentive have made it very popular with startups as it can fund up to 45% of the development costs. Every year I see many five and six figure tax refund cheques go to software startups that don't have significantly large revenue.

Once you get larger, the tax & other benefits of offshoring are undeniable. I would expect that Atlassian will keep their development teams in Silicon Valley and Australia, who can still benefit from the better access to capital and valuations from outside of Australia.