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We’ve come to the conclusion that the truth about the Australian Taxation Office’s bullying of self-employed people will only come out in a full Royal Commission inquiry.

We’ve been strongly prompted to this conclusion by an article in The Australian yesterday by the doyen of business columnists, Robert Gottliebsen. Robert is correct in his article 'The ATO is repeating the hideous mistakes of bank boards'. More...

The Turnbull government is proposing new legislation that would give the ATO the power to report (alleged) small business debts to credit rating agencies.

We absolutely oppose this, as reported in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald this week.

We want this Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax 3 Transparency) Bill 2018: Transparency of taxation debts withdrawn. It has nothing to do with transparency. It is a new grab for power by the ATO.  More...

I'm afraid we're seeing a big political swing against freedom in the workplace. The most obvious driver of this agenda is the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

Essentially, what unions want are changes to the Fair Work Act to force businesses to do deals with unions. The FWA was created by the Rudd Labor government in 2009. But it has not worked to the advantage of the unions in the way unions had expected. The key to union/business deals is that unions offer businesses corrupt deals that either (a) reduce workers' wages and/or (b) make life more difficult for the businesses' competitors. Businesses pay money to unions for this 'service'. More...

Yes, we have to feel sorry these days for employees who are forced to attend the staff Xmas party. All the merriment has changed.

First, employees have to undergo HR training and briefings on how to behave or not behave. Hugs are banned. Be careful who you smile at and how! No sitting on Santa’s lap. Conversations and greetings must be religiously diversified and non-judgmental. Champagne is replaced with sparkling non-alcoholic lolly water. Sorry, no jokes! More...

We commented recently about dysfunctional politics. But with the chaos that’s developed over politicians being constitutionally ineligible because of dual citizenship, things have become weird!

Now we know it’s probably just a bit ‘weird’ for ‘normal’ people to sit and read the Constitution and constitutional rulings, but we couldn’t help it! In fact, being Aussie ‘weird’ is a great tradition. Check this YouTube video of the 1966 movie They’re a weird mob. You’ll either groan with embarrassment or laugh out loud. Or take lessons on how to ‘Aussie’ behave! More...

The Turnbull government is moving with a new ‘fair go for small business’ law that’s got the big end of town crying ‘unfair’!!

The ‘big enders’ are claiming the law will lead to lawsuits, put pressure on household incomes and damage the free market.

Oh spare us the tears! This is an environment where big businesses have been caught colluding with unions to reduce workers’ wages thereby giving big business a competitive advantage over small business. See here and here. More...

We were delighted to see in The Australian yesterday that the Senate independents are backing a deal to bring forward the implementation of the Australian Construction Code. This is a huge win for small business subbies in the construction sector. More...

When we first started arguing for unfair contract laws for small business people in 2009 we had discussions with the Federal Attorney-General's Department. They told us that there wasn’t a problem because no-one complained. But we campaigned persistently for seven years until the laws were passed.

The new laws started last Saturday, 12 November 2016. (Hooray!) The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission last week released a report into the 12 months' research they have done on unfair contracts. The ACCC believes that somewhere between 8 and 10 million (yes million) contracts will need to be re-written to comply with the new laws.  More...

Tomorrow, Saturday 12 November, the new unfair contract laws for small business people come into effect.

At ICA we can be rightly proud of these laws because we spent seven years arguing for the laws. There’s no question that these laws have happened because of ICA. More...

If you are one of the 2 million self-employed people in Australia we suggest you read the following very carefully. This is a story of (frankly) how concerned you should be about your potential treatment by the Australian Taxation Office. It’s the story of Rod Douglass, a 55-year-old IT contractor, but it could just as easily be you.

We first explained the tax issues in March this year. Then three weeks ago we announced the legal action we have organised to defend Rod, who’s been accused of tax evasion and sent a bill for $550,000 backdated 10 years. (It will bankrupt him!) What he did was comply with tax information published on the ATO website. However, the ATO says that by acting on this ATO information Rod committed tax evasion. ICA and our legal team are organizing Rod’s defence at no cost to him. This an important issue of justice.  More...