Our latest insights

The employment taxes landscape in Australia is constantly evolving. There has been increased focus from the Australian Taxation Office and State Revenue Offices, leading to a rise in employment tax compliance audits.

Following the finalisation of the Taxation ruling TR 2023/1 on residency tests for individuals, the ATO have now issued a consultation paper on the new proposed changes relating to assessing an individual’s tax residency.

On 7 June 2023, the ATO released the finalised Taxation Ruling TR 2023/1 on residency tests for individuals.

During the FY23 financial year, our Employment solutions team highlighted key updates, issues and ATO review activity that finance and payroll leaders need to be across in a series of webinars, seminars and insights. Here we’ve summarised some of those key items which remain relevant as we approach FY24 including fringe benefits, single touch payroll, superannuation guarantee, employee vs contractor and employee share schemes.

Are you up to date on your TPAR obligations? The Australian Taxation Office has begun to actively issue failure to lodge penalties for businesses who are behind on their TPAR lodgements.

Are you a Director? Has your company met its PAYG, GST and Superannuation obligations? If not, you could be personally liable for these amounts.

On 6 October 2022, the ATO released Draft Taxation Ruling TR 2022/D2 Income Tax: residency tests for individuals. TR 2022/D2 has consolidated and replaced previous ATO rulings, TR 98/17 and IT 2650 (both withdrawn effective 6 October 2022) on the ATO’s interpretation of the residency rules as set out in Section 6(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936.

The Federal Government’s Jobs and Skills Summit brought Government, employers, unions and the broader community together with the aim of building a bigger, better trained and more productive workforce, boosting real wages and living standards for Australians. But how will it affect businesses in the short term – and the long term?

The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) has announced its strategic priorities for 2022-23 including where audit and enforcement activities will be undertaken in relation to wage underpayments.

There have been pressure systems gathering momentum along two fronts. Whilst they have largely gone unnoticed by many in the industry, collisions between the two have occurred and left some casualties in the M&A space. Previously, it was regarded by many deal-makers that employer obligations were quite low in risk. However, multiple enforcement agencies are focusing on unpaid employee entitlements and contract hire labour. The uptick in compliance activity has coincided with growth in the M&A space, leading many to believe there are huge levels of unquantified risk in the market – often not covered by warranty and indemnity insurance.

Despite the positive economic outlook, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been far reaching and have had a lasting impression on one of business’s biggest resources – its people.

Across all industries and at all levels of employment – from CEOs to backpackers – businesses are looking to this year’s Federal Budget for incentives to make working in Australia more attractive.