Page 2155 - Week 10 - Thursday, 26 October 1989
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anti-avoidance measure which the Assembly has to consider and deliver for the people of Canberra.
Much has been said in the debate over this issue and I will try not to repeat too much of it, but I think that, because the matter has been held over, members may wish or need to be refreshed about the issues which have been raised in the debate.
The Bill, as has been said, covers four main issues, and will extend the payroll tax base to include payments made in a greater number of circumstances. The amendment picks up the scheme introduced by the Commonwealth to tax the increasing range of fringe benefits. The following payments will be required: payments to third parties for services as an employee; payments on termination of employment, such as pay-out of furlough or long service leave; and payments by a third party to the employee.
It includes a wider range of benefits as wages for payroll tax purposes; for example, those covered by the Commonwealth fringe benefits legislation. I must say that the absence of tax collection in relation to those benefits is, to my way of thinking, a serious anomaly in the taxation policies of the Territory. This amendment will pick up the scheme introduced by the Commonwealth to tax the increasing range of fringe benefits, including the method by which the benefit will be valued.
The Commonwealth scheme is extremely comprehensive, and business interests have welcomed tying the ACT requirement to the return prepared for the Commonwealth purposes. Of course, by tying it to that return it will avoid additional work, and that will be of significant benefit to local businesses, because if they were required to have a different form of return it would be an additional burden.
It will nullify contract arrangements which are shams and are entered into merely to obscure employee and employer relationships in order to avoid or minimise payroll tax liability. A number of the members who have spoken on this issue have expressed some revulsion about those sorts of scams, and rightly so. This is an anti-avoidance measure, and it is made necessary by some employers' arrangements, which have already been described as a blur of employment relationships.
I think, Mr Speaker, that those issues are extremely important and the blurring of employment relationships is one that is really a trick to avoid tax. I think it is high time that this Government moved, and I am sure that we will be recognised for the progressive nature of the move at all times in the future.
I think that there is no need for arbitrary qualifications to be introduced into the ACT, since the only test which should apply is whether the relationship is one of employment. Similarly, the exclusion of designated groups
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