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An April 2021 High Court outcome demonstrates that the ATO has chucked the rule of law into the bin. The ATO asserts that it can manufacture a tax debt based on gossip.

Between 2012 and 2015, criminals defrauded the ATO of at least $2.45 billion in GST in the ‘gold scam’. In happened arguably because of ATO incompetence. We’ve explained this before.  More...

Today we release details of continuing abuse of small business by the ATO.

You may remember that in 2018 we were heavily involved in the production of the ABC 4 Corners program Mongrel Bunch of Bastards. The program exposed the gross abuse of small business people by the ATO. Since then we have campaigned hard for reform to the ATO’s audit and enforcement division, which is where the problems exist.

This time, in our view, the abuse looks like a massive ATO cover-up of the largest tax scandal in Australia’s history. Surely not, we ask? More...

The Federal government’s small business agency, the Small Business Ombudsman, has called for major changes to the way the Australian Taxation Office operates. The Ombudsman, Kate Carnell, says “… the time is right for Government to deliver a [tax administration] system that suits the small business sector…”

We totally agree. The ATO’s approach to small business is bullying, unfair and oppressive. We’ve been highlighting this since around 2012 and have been calling for major change. See our 20-minute video. More...

You may have seen reports that the UK’s top court has decided that Uber drivers are not independent contractors. The UK decision seems to support the unions’ campaign against the gig economy. It gives the appearance of international support for Federal Labor’s anti-gig (anti-small business) policy announced earlier this month.  More...

Our campaign to reform the ATO continues. Good grief it’s an exhausting process! But the ATO keeps demonstrating why the reform is needed because the ATO keeps behaving badly.

Today we’re highlighting another case of ATO bad behaviour.

Many small businesses are structured as trusts. Most are family trusts. The ‘beneficiaries’ of such trusts are typically family members. A trust can distribute profits to the beneficiaries who then pay the tax.  More...

As we look to 2021 to be a better year than 2020, perhaps one of the shocks of Covid-19 has been how quickly our freedoms and liberty have been crushed under the weight of health dictates. It’s been done for our own good—that is, to keep us all safe from a silent, unseen enemy killer.

With luck, we will emerge from the Covid crisis this year with freedoms being returned. One fear, however, is that once governments, whether of left or right persuasion, taste the seductive power of authoritarianism, they become addictively hooked. There’s nothing some bureaucrats love more than the scent of their own power first thing in the morning. More...

We’ve covered before the weird laws in California (called AB5) that have made self-employment illegal. On the evidence, it seems that these laws have pushed California’s unemployment rate to 50 per cent higher than the US average. The laws came into force on 1 January this year. But it’s now impacting on Christmas.  More...

At Self-Employed Australia we’ve been campaigning for a heck of a long time for reform of the ATO in the way it handles disputes—particularly with small business people. In the economic recovery from Covid, reform of the ATO must assume high importance.

Fair treatment of taxpayers is essential and this is not occurring if you find yourself in dispute with the ATO. The tax administration laws and the tax system are ‘stacked’ to enable the ATO to abuse its powers. This is bad for society and the economy.  More...

In the latest of a series of swipes at the Victorian Islamic community, the Dan Andrews government has blamed a Somali family and their Islamic school for the spread of Covid. The family, backed by the community, has hit back saying it’s the government’s fault.

The government’s attack against the community is occurring because the government is trying to deflect blame away from itself for causing the latest Covid outbreak of last week. This has resulted in the continuing Melbourne lockdown. More...

As a group, the Victorian ALP is politically walking dead. It cannot win the next state election in November 2022.

That is a pretty big claim. Predicting an election outcome two years out is foolish by any measure. But here’s the reasoning.

In Australia’s current political environment each major party can only rely on a locked-on vote of about 35 per cent each. The task at every election is to grab enough of the remaining 30 per cent swinging voters to end up with 50 per cent plus one on election day. More...