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Today we give a very big thanks to Ali Noroozi who is retiring this month after ten years as the Inspector-General of Taxation (IGT).

Eager followers and members of Self-Employed Australia will be well aware of our extensive and ongoing campaigns to extract fairness from the Australian Taxation Office.

But not many people (outside the public service) are likely aware of the extent to which the office of the Inspector-General of Taxation has been extracting measures of fairness from the ATO. More...

It was an interesting week last week when witnessing the contrasting faces of the Australian Taxation Office displayed before various Parliamentary Committees.

On Wednesday (24 October) the ATO appeared before Senate Estimates.  The Tax Commissioner said this:  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...

I was in an Uber the other day and got talking to my driver. He was a Sikh. We had quite a conversation about his religion and the importance of it to his everyday life. I’ve never met a Sikh before! He was most interesting. I asked him why he drives Uber. His response was quick. He loves being his own boss. He can make his work fit around his family commitments.

My Sikh driver reminded me of why we at Self-Employed Australia have been doing what we do for almost 20 years. We’ve been defending the right of people to be self-employed. We’ve seen attacks from many directions. The attackers always seem to argue that somehow ‘we’ are being exploited. They can’t seem to contemplate that in self-employment there is economic liberty and freedom! My Sikh driver knows and lives that reality.  More...

If you’re not happy with your treatment by the ATO, you have a chance to put your story on the record. But you need to be quick. We’ve just become aware that the Parliamentary Committee that most closely reviews the ATO is calling for last-minute stories from people about their treatment by the ATO. Self-Employed Australia will be putting in a submission. More...

It’s a shock to find that what could be viewed as arguably the greatest tax scandal in Australia’s history was organised by the Australian Taxation Office. The tax revenue loss from high-wealth individuals who should have paid tax is likely in the order of $2 billion, perhaps even more.

The tax losses relate to an ATO tax amnesty called Project Do It which gave massive tax advantages to Australian high-wealth individuals who had hidden $6.5 billion in secret overseas (mostly Swiss) bank accounts. They were tax evaders who were about to be caught.  More...

Here’s an amazing admission. The United Kingdom tax authority, HMRC, has admitted that it does secret deals to avoid damaging the reputation of the most powerful members of society, allowing them to escape prosecution for financial crimes. But it still prosecutes small business people!

Gob-smacked? Yep! Talk about one rule for the rich and another for the ordinary person. We thought the UK is a democracy and isn’t there this historical thing called Magna Carta??? More...

Breaking news is that the Australian Labor Party will, if they win government at the next election, restructure the ATO so that it is forced to use fairer processes in its handling of tax disputes. The ALP media release is here.

We are delighted with this first step by the ALP, but it doesn’t go far enough.

We have made it clear (and very public) that our faith in the ATO to operate fairly, even legally, has totally collapsed. We explained this in evidence to a Senate Inquiry in late June. We also provided a detailed submission.  More...

Ooops! I praised one of Australia’s banks while on a speaker’s panel last week at the Global Business Banking Summit in Sydney. Given all the heat coming on the banks from the Royal Commission maybe I should have been more cautious?

I was on the panel with Small Business Ombudsman Kate Carnell and economist Stephen Koukoulas discussing banks and small business lending. The room was full of bankers. 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...