The Government has stepped in to protect workers following months of controversial headlines uncovering poor record keeping, questionable workplace practices and exploitation, underpayments, deception, and superannuation guarantee fraud by employers. The Protecting Vulnerable Workers Bill amends the Fair Work Act to: Increase penalties for ‘serious contraventions’ of workplace laws A ‘serious contravention’ of workplace law occurs if someone knowingly contravenes the law and their conduct is part of a systematic pattern. The penalties for breaches vary according to the offence and have increased up to 10 times higher than cases without the aggravating features. A breach is more likely to be
From 1 July 2018, the taxable payments reporting system will extend beyond the building industry to cleaning and courier businesses. This means that these businesses will need to report payments they make to contractors (individual and total for the year) to the ATO. By ‘payment’ the ATO means any form of consideration including non-cash benefits and constructive payments. The building industry has had this form of “enhanced reporting” since 2012-13. The result was an additional $2.3 billion in income tax and GST liabilities collected through voluntary reporting in the first year alone. What is a cleaning and courier service? The terms ‘cleaning service’ and ‘courier service’ take their ordi
