About 20% of the Australian workforce was employed by micro enterprises last year. As employers they withhold and pay about $14 billion in pay as you go withholding on behalf of their employees.
Although the majority of employers do the right thing, some do not meet their obligations - and we follow up with field, phone and desk reviews. This year we expect to review the tax affairs of around 24,500 businesses to ensure they are reporting the correct amounts of pay as you go withholding.
Some employers may be incorrectly treating employees as contractors, pressuring them to get Australian business numbers, thereby reducing labour costs and gaining a competitive advantage over other businesses. Many of these arrangements are 'shams' as they aim to sidestep an employer's obligations to their workers, including pay as you go withholding, superannuation guarantee and a range of other workplace entitlements.
While prevalent in the building and construction industries, sham arrangements are spreading into industries with more traditional employee-employer relationships. We have identified cases in:
- call centres
- cleaning
- security
- logistics
- retail
- tourism and hospitality
- education
- aged care
- health
- telecommunications.
In our field visits with employers we use our online employee/contractor decision tool to differentiate between legitimate contracting and arrangements that seek to disguise the true relationship in order to blatantly abuse the tax system and to avoid employer responsibilities to workers.
The Temporary Flood and Cyclone Reconstruction Levy has been incorporated in the pay as you go withholding schedules to update the rates of withholding. A new flood levy exemption withholding declaration will cater for employees entitled to exemption. When we visit businesses to check compliance with their employer obligations, we will review their tax affairs to ensure employers are correctly applying the levy and exemptions.
We investigate all complaints about employers not meeting their superannuation guarantee obligations. Last year we followed up complaints on around 14,000 mainly micro employers. This year we expect to contact around 12,500 mainly micro employers regarding complaints about unpaid superannuation.
We will continue our pro-active activities regarding employer compliance with superannuation guarantee obligations. We will undertake an education and communication campaign aimed at promoting knowledge of superannuation guarantee obligations in several target industries:
- cafes and restaurants
- real estate services
- carpentry services.
These industries have been selected based on analysis of previous employee complaints.
We will review over 4,000 high risk employers where we find evidence of non-compliance with superannuation guarantee obligations, particularly in the industries where we have previously focused our communication activities, including:
- computers system design and related services
- accommodation
- accounting services.
Sections within Micro enterprises
Last Modified: Friday, 1 July 2011