Ready to reduce taxpayer headache with mobile and remote lodgement solution - TechInvest Magazine Online

WE have all faced up to disruption that having to do our taxes can have on our work and social life.

The majority of the time we need to take a good hour or two off work, or in our spare time, to drive to and from our tax accountant’s office and to complete all our paperwork. Paying tax can be painful enough without having to go through all that rigmarole.

But now a local startup has come up with a unique solution which utilises mobile technology to remove the slow, costly and inefficient processes associated with traditional income tax return lodgement.

The Quax solution has been developed by brothers Braden and Ryan Smith who have been successfully running a mobile tax accounting business for five years in Western Australia.

Even though the brothers’ mobile service has been greatly welcomed, they have still received strong feedback from their customers that they would much prefer to be able to complete their tax returns and lodgements at a time that suited them.

For this Early Stage Innovation Company (ESIC), that was a challenge they were happy to accept and they have already achieved a number of important targets, including the recent release of their mobile technology live on to both app stores.

Co-founder Braden Smith says that now that Quax has achieved this important milestone the company is fully focused on the next stage of the technologies development.

To support the next growth stage the company is preparing to undertake a second and final round of major fundraising which will be used for two primary functions:

1. To fund a marketing campaign pushing the app technology and the business service offering – the goal being to gain as much traction as possible from an app user point of view but also from an end-user point of view i.e. clients who actually have their returns prepared and lodged with Quax.
2. To fund the additional versions/developments of the app technology which will not only complement the September 2017 MVP release but build genuine added value to not only the app but the app-users overall experience.

These functions include document/receipt scanning, advertising/marketing space for other professional service industries e.g. mortgage brokers, financial planners, insurance brokers etc.

The staged development and release of the Quax technology will culminate in 2019 with the unveiling of a game-changing 2019 Version 1.04 – which will allow for “Live” remote appointments.

This Video link booking option will allow taxpayers to book an appointment for tax return, tax advice or advice from another financial professional from a different industry and have this booking take place via a video link within the app,” Co-founder Braden Smith says.

“It really opens up the availability of a quality service to all taxpayers regardless of where they live,” he added.

The company has already received Early Stage Innovation Company (ESIC) approval and obtained eligibility as an ATO Research & Development Tax Offset (R&D Rebate) organisation.

Ryan Smith says Quax is simple business model, built for scale in a very large and constantly growing market.

The initial target market is an immense one with some 13.4 million Australian Individual Income Tax Payers required to lodge tax returns each year.

Of that number approximately 9.9 million tax returns are currently lodged by Tax Agents.

“Quax is the deployment and mobilisation of a technology / brand model, to take their current high performing, mobile accounting business to another level – both here in Western Australia, and then right across Australia,” Ryan Smith says.

“Our aim at Quax is to be the HEALTH ENGINE of the professional services industry and the place to go for convenience and access to a suite of professional and financial services.”

With the recent successful launch of their mobile technology App and their exciting plans for the future, Quax is ready to reduce the tax “headache” for clients all across the country.