A New Worker Category under the Personal Service Income Regime in Australia

In the past, Australia's tax laws responded to the ever-changing legal environment within which businesses operate, while employing anti-avoidance provisions. Introduced in 2000, the tax regime known as "personal service income", which treats certain contractors and business owners/ma...

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Main Author: Allen, Christina
Format: Journal Article
Published: Thomson Reuters 2021
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/85326
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author Allen, Christina
author_facet Allen, Christina
author_sort Allen, Christina
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description In the past, Australia's tax laws responded to the ever-changing legal environment within which businesses operate, while employing anti-avoidance provisions. Introduced in 2000, the tax regime known as "personal service income", which treats certain contractors and business owners/managers as employees, diverged from this approach. This article explores the factors driving the formulation of the regime and whether the pre-existing anti-avoidance provisions were ineffective. It finds that the regime was motivated by counterbalancing the fiscal impact of the proposed corporate tax rate reduction and consequently brought about a new category of workers who have all legal rights and obligations outside the existing tax laws as independent contractors but are treated as employees for tax purposes. These workers are akin to dependent contractors – which has no legal or commercial meaning in Australia. These findings indicate a potential opening for a new method of legislating tax laws.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-853262021-09-13T05:23:13Z A New Worker Category under the Personal Service Income Regime in Australia Allen, Christina In the past, Australia's tax laws responded to the ever-changing legal environment within which businesses operate, while employing anti-avoidance provisions. Introduced in 2000, the tax regime known as "personal service income", which treats certain contractors and business owners/managers as employees, diverged from this approach. This article explores the factors driving the formulation of the regime and whether the pre-existing anti-avoidance provisions were ineffective. It finds that the regime was motivated by counterbalancing the fiscal impact of the proposed corporate tax rate reduction and consequently brought about a new category of workers who have all legal rights and obligations outside the existing tax laws as independent contractors but are treated as employees for tax purposes. These workers are akin to dependent contractors – which has no legal or commercial meaning in Australia. These findings indicate a potential opening for a new method of legislating tax laws. 2021 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/85326 Thomson Reuters restricted
spellingShingle Allen, Christina
A New Worker Category under the Personal Service Income Regime in Australia
title A New Worker Category under the Personal Service Income Regime in Australia
title_full A New Worker Category under the Personal Service Income Regime in Australia
title_fullStr A New Worker Category under the Personal Service Income Regime in Australia
title_full_unstemmed A New Worker Category under the Personal Service Income Regime in Australia
title_short A New Worker Category under the Personal Service Income Regime in Australia
title_sort new worker category under the personal service income regime in australia
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/85326