Page 3234 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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when the then minister Ted Quinlan said that the ACT government will be “unashamedly pro-business and committed to actions that will make the ACT the premier business friendly location in Australia”.
More recently, the current Minister for Economic Development, Mr Barr, who is the Treasurer as well, released his growth strategy—growth, diversification and jobs—in which he said that the government is creating jobs, growth and diversification by creating the right business environment. The ACT government has also implemented progressive business development policies, and the government wants to ensure that the territory is open for business.
The intent of these statements made nearly 10 years apart is quite clear. The government wants to encourage business development and it wants to do this, in part, by having a competitive policy environment. A common theme running through these statement objectives is to create a positive economic policy environment in which businesses could prosper.
A concomitant objective is to ensure that business activities are not strangled by unnecessary red tape—that is, any regulations must be relevant and contribute to creating a good policy environment. Clearly, this objective is imperative if the ACT is to become a sound and sustainable economy.
This brings me back to the contemporary situation relating to the ACT’s payroll tax regime. I have said there are concerns about the way in which the payroll tax regime is being administered. These concerns deal with such matters as the way early decisions of the ACT Revenue Office, such as are contained in public circulars, are interpreted; the way the grouping provisions are interpreted; the way the discretion to de-group entities is applied; the way beneficiaries of trusts are dealt with, including how grouping provisions are interpreted and how beneficiaries of gifts are treated; the way any liabilities to pay payroll tax attach to directors of companies; substantial delays in the issuing of notices of assessment; substantial delays in making decisions on objections; delays in issuing letters of demand; the way the decisions of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, ACAT, are observed; and the way the payroll tax regime in the ACT is administered in contrast to approaches in New South Wales and Victoria. The 2007 bill passed in 2008 was, of course, to align us with New South Wales and Victoria.
I want to illustrate these concerns with a couple of examples of the significant delays which have been experienced by entities in the ACT. In one instance, an entity was issued with a notice of assessment in late 2006 for the period beginning in mid-2000. That is a delay of six years to start with. The entity objected to that notice within weeks. The ACT Revenue Office made a decision on that objection in mid-2010—that is, it took a further 3½ years to have a decision on the objection, meaning it had taken nine years to the point since the matter had first begun.
In another instance an entity is being investigated by the ACT Revenue Office. The investigation starts in early 2006 and a notice of assessment is issued in early 2010. That is a delay of four years. The entity objected to the notice and a decision on this objection was made in early 2012—that is, another delay of two years. This matter
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