Alan Kohler is one of Australia’s most experienced commentators and journalists. Alan is the founder of Eureka Report, Australia’s most successful investment newsletter, and Business Spectator, a 24-hour free business news and commentary website. He also hosts Inside Business, a half-hour Sunday programme on the ABC, is the finance presenter on the ABC News - and producer of the nightly graph (or two).
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Comments on this article
Comments PolicyI am self employed because that is the way it works in the building industry, at least for domestic work.
Your rate of income fluctuates with the weather, economy, sickness, injury and holidays.
(See Tax rights under siege, December 22).
You have to pay Fair Trading license fees for the privilege to work.
Large companies off-load their responsibilities for anything by asking you to form a company.
There is no union protection possible in this environment so you are out on your own in every sense of the word.
The risk of not getting paid by builders sending their company broke is high and can send you broke too.
So what we don't need now is to be screwed further by the tax office.
The 'self employed' love the differential tax treatment between contractors and employees because it allows them to claim tax deductions that ordinary PAYG wage earners do not have access to and therefore allows them to pay less tax. (See Tax rights under siege, December 22).
The tax system fundamentally discriminates against employees and it's not surprising that people take every opportunity to become a 'contractor' by registering an ABN, opening a bank account and whipping up a few invoices. We should all be so lucky.
Some contractors and principals bought this upon themselves. (See Tax rights under siege, December 22).
Let's face it, many of these people are employees who try to get a tax advantage (sometimes because of the insistence of their greedy and unscrupulous employers). The solution is simple: tax them all like employees.
I empathise with your comments about the Rudd government's aggressive attack against the small business community via the Board of Taxation's report into the operation of the personal services income tax laws.
(See Tax rights under siege, December 22).
They hit a raw nerve with myself, a self-employed 'sub contractor' to the Federal government (they control 65 per cent of my business).
There are a few government issues coming together that are making me very frustrated.
My parents and myself have supplied services to the government for over 60 years and the story is always the same, we invest in productivity gains to improve services to the government and the public only to have the government through imbalanced contracts and legislative theft. take immoral amounts of that gain and continue to demand more.
We are drowning in procedures and documentation that save them lots of money, and cost us lots of money, and that are counterproductive for the public, we and our industry are at breaking point.
Kevin Rudd's proposed ETS is going to pile on a massive extra tax and paperwork through 'sustainability documentation', without any increase in our remuneration contract, and Kevin's ETS will not stop climate change.
Julia Gillard's changes to industrial relations laws, only increases our burden.
Removal of some benefits of self-employed or sub contractors, would be the last straw and would unleash the pent-up anger in the community.
The last time the government upset me and our industry to this level of anger, motivated all of us to actively and successfully campaign against Malcolm Fraser.
Many of my work associates such as lawyers, accountants, and doctors have had enough with government taxation and interference, pulled the pin early (retired) and have now moved offshore or tour the world.