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Atlassian Seeks Domicile Move to Pave Way for U.S. Initial Offer

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Re: Atlassian Seeks Domicile Move to Pave Way for U.S. Initial Offer

#11

Post by 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.

Re: Atlassian Seeks Domicile Move to Pave Way for U.S. Initial Offer

#13

Post by HarveyKandola »

junto wrote: post #4

I really hope this doesn't fuck up the company offering. We are deeply embedded with Atlassian products / services. JIRA is an ingrained part of our daily business processes. All of our developers actually like it - a first when it comes to bug / issue / story management tools. It has its quirks, but we haven't found anything that matches it to date.

Shameless plug: we @Countersoft actually compete with Jira all day long.

But I hear you - there's not many enterprise grade issue trackers (that don't suck).

Re: Atlassian Seeks Domicile Move to Pave Way for U.S. Initial Offer

#14

Post by hermanhermitage »

wil421 wrote: post #12

I hope the move helps them and doesnt cause their products to suffer. We use Jira in my organization and I hope that we can eventually get off SVN and move to Stash or Bitbucket. Although thats probably a pipe dream but I still favor Git over SVN.

I doubt the redomicile will have an impact on their product quality. I'm a customer of OnDemand for better or worse, but their products have been in a death spiral for at least the past 3 years. Poor performance with their cloud based solutions and a clumsiness and complexity fast eclipsing the ibm/clearcase rubbish...

Re: Atlassian Seeks Domicile Move to Pave Way for U.S. Initial Offer

#15

Post by ig1 »

jacques_chester wrote: post #10
wluu wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Ausssie, I'm also sad about this. By the sounds of it, they've given this move a lot of careful consideration. But, rather than just be sad about it... Might be a good opportunity to discuss what can be done to improve on the situation for future Australian companies? In what ways can navigating through the red tape be made simpler? I know there's a lot of small startups springing up across at least Melbo…

It's probably not about red tape. It's that companies listed on US exchanges have higher valuations than companies listed on the ASX. There's just not that much red tape in Australia. Starting and running a company costs a few hundred bucks per year. If you keep up your books, reporting takes a few minutes per quarter. Bam, you've successfully navigated all the red tape needed to run a software business.

You don't have to be in the US to be listed in the US, Atlassian are actually moving to the UK but listing in the US.

Re: Atlassian Seeks Domicile Move to Pave Way for U.S. Initial Offer

#16

Post by nikcub »

ig1 wrote: post #15
jacques_chester wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not about red tape. It's that companies listed on US exchanges have higher valuations than companies listed on the ASX. There's just not that much red tape in Australia. Starting and running a company costs a few hundred bucks per year. If you keep up your books, reporting takes a few minutes per quarter. Bam, you've successfully navigated all the red tape needed to run a software business.

You don't have to be in the US to be listed in the US, Atlassian are actually moving to the UK but listing in the US.

Exactly. This is all about corporate tax rates, capital gains, transfer pricing, etc.

Re: Atlassian Seeks Domicile Move to Pave Way for U.S. Initial Offer

#17

Post by jacques_chester »

ig1 wrote: post #15
jacques_chester wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not about red tape. It's that companies listed on US exchanges have higher valuations than companies listed on the ASX. There's just not that much red tape in Australia. Starting and running a company costs a few hundred bucks per year. If you keep up your books, reporting takes a few minutes per quarter. Bam, you've successfully navigated all the red tape needed to run a software business.

You don't have to be in the US to be listed in the US, Atlassian are actually moving to the UK but listing in the US.

Right. I'm going on the article's assertion that relocating to the UK will make it easier to launch an IPO in a US market.

Tax would be a big part of that. I expect that American familiarity and comfort with UK companies would be another.

Re: Atlassian Seeks Domicile Move to Pave Way for U.S. Initial Offer

#18

Post by jacques_chester »

nikcub wrote: post #16
ig1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to be in the US to be listed in the US, Atlassian are actually moving to the UK but listing in the US.

Exactly. This is all about corporate tax rates, capital gains, transfer pricing, etc.

Could you elaborate? It'd be interesting to know more.

Re: Atlassian Seeks Domicile Move to Pave Way for U.S. Initial Offer

#19

Post by Edmond »

HarveyKandola wrote: post #13
junto wrote: post #4

I really hope this doesn't fuck up the company offering. We are deeply embedded with Atlassian products / services. JIRA is an ingrained part of our daily business processes. All of our developers actually like it - a first when it comes to bug / issue / story management tools. It has its quirks, but we haven't found anything that matches it to date.

Shameless plug: we @Countersoft actually compete with Jira all day long. But I hear you - there's not many enterprise grade issue trackers (that don't suck).

Nothing shameless! So how does one get a start selling software to enterprise? Granted your product is SAAS so I suppose that reduces the barrier.

I spent 6 years doing Enterprise consulting but as a workerbee I don't believe that gives me much of a leg up, compared to say someone who was an exec.

I don't want to start cold calling/emailing former clients and coworkers :)

Re: Atlassian Seeks Domicile Move to Pave Way for U.S. Initial Offer

#20

Post by davedx »

junto wrote: post #4

I really hope this doesn't fuck up the company offering. We are deeply embedded with Atlassian products / services. JIRA is an ingrained part of our daily business processes. All of our developers actually like it - a first when it comes to bug / issue / story management tools. It has its quirks, but we haven't found anything that matches it to date.

I love JIRA. The plugin ecosystem, on the other hand, reminds me of Wordpress in a mildly negative way.

Vanilla JIRA and Bitbucket are both really solid offerings. JIRA is so ubiquitous I've used it on and off at various companies almost since it was first released. They've done so well there.

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