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Earlier this week we discussed the history of Uber in its global legal battles to have its drivers accepted as independent contractors. The Uber battle is at the forefront of the gig ‘question’.

Today we focus on the Australian Taxation Office and its incompetence (from our experience) in assessing employee vs independent contractor status. The ATO should learn from a significant Uber legal decision in Australia. It probably won’t though More...

Earlier this month the Fair Work Ombudsman released a statement that, after a two-year investigation, it has concluded that drivers working through Uber are not employees.

The Transport Workers Union described the decision as ‘…devastating for workers in the gig economy’. One academic said the decision was ‘very disappointing’.  More...

You might recall the campaign hullaballoo we generated in late 2017 when the ATO cancelled the ABNs of 16 low-income, work-from-home, self-employed women. The ATO ‘assessed’ the women as employees. The denial of ABNs destroyed their incomes and forced many on to welfare. After 13 weeks of intense campaigning, the ATO ‘temporarily’ reinstated their ABNs.

The weird thing about this situation was that when we asked if any of the women were not paying their required tax, the ATO replied that it didn’t know. We checked and verified that all the women were paying tax as required. The ATO’s job is to collect tax. But in this case the ATO didn’t care about tax compliance. We discovered another agenda. We confirmed that powerful forces in the ATO are obsessed with the thought that there is something wrong about self-employed people. The ATO seeks to stop people being contractors whether or not tax compliance is occurring. This is the ATO acting well outside of its remit.  More...

According to demographer Bernard Salt, there’s a big cultural shift in Australia towards being your own boss. And it’s a lifestyle thing. In The Australian Bernard referred to: More...

Usually, in the lead-up to elections, governments make all sort of promises in the hope that this will give them favour with the electorate. But we’re delighted to report that with small business tax reform the Morrison government is delivering, not simply talking.

Today the government announced that the Small Business Tax Tribunal will start up on the 1 March 2019—just two weeks away. This is huge. We continue to see bad ATO small business audits and an ATO incapable of quickly fixing glaring audit errors. It’s an audit system of considerable incompetence, with small business people the victims.  More...

Goodness. We had lots of people respond to our last news alert of (boring) summer tax reading. Large numbers of people downloaded our December submissions to Parliamentary and Treasury reviews of the Australian Taxation Office.

So we thought we’d enliven your summer reading even more! This time it’s the submission we made to Treasury in its review of Australian Business Numbers.

Over the last few years the ATO has been aggressively denying individuals access to ABNs and cancelling ABNs. There’s been an attitude that many people are not really running small businesses. The ATO reckons that it can identify a ‘real’ business from a ‘sham’ business.  More...

Yes, well it’s pretty obvious that the political system is in chaos. But despite the turmoil we thought we’d give you some updates on a few more sane things (from our perspective) that are coming through.

Free legal advice in ATO disputes
The Labor opposition is talking of funding free legal advice on tax matters to low-income taxpayers if they win government. It’s further recognition by Labor of the unequal power relationship between small business people and the ATO.  More...

This year we have been highlighting the unfair treatment of self-employed people by the ATO. We’ve been doing a lot of work talking to politicians from all parties, senior public servants and the media. Self-Employed Australia continues to support and assist those who are under ATO attack.

Now we need your help. More...

The supposed ‘rise’ of the ‘gig’ economy is causing much debate on whether its impacts are good or evil for society. There’s much confusion.

The author of a new book, Gigged: The End of the Job and the Future of Work, was interviewed on the USA Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) this week where the social issues were discussed. The four-minute interview can be seen here.  More...

Following the ABC Four Corners program ‘Mongrel Bunch of Bastards’ alleging Australian Taxation Office abuse of small business people, the first of three government-ordered reports was released yesterday.

The report from Small Business Ombudsman Kate Carnel states that the ATO has “serious system-wide issues” that result in “…fundamental denial of access to justice for small business.” More...