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Breaking news is that the Australian Labor Party will, if they win government at the next election, restructure the ATO so that it is forced to use fairer processes in its handling of tax disputes. The ALP media release is here.

We are delighted with this first step by the ALP, but it doesn’t go far enough.

We have made it clear (and very public) that our faith in the ATO to operate fairly, even legally, has totally collapsed. We explained this in evidence to a Senate Inquiry in late June. We also provided a detailed submission.  More...

Ooops! I praised one of Australia’s banks while on a speaker’s panel last week at the Global Business Banking Summit in Sydney. Given all the heat coming on the banks from the Royal Commission maybe I should have been more cautious?

I was on the panel with Small Business Ombudsman Kate Carnell and economist Stephen Koukoulas discussing banks and small business lending. The room was full of bankers. More...

The supposed ‘rise’ of the ‘gig’ economy is causing much debate on whether its impacts are good or evil for society. There’s much confusion.

The author of a new book, Gigged: The End of the Job and the Future of Work, was interviewed on the USA Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) this week where the social issues were discussed. The four-minute interview can be seen here.  More...

A proposed new law would effectively empower the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to bankrupt a business overnight where the ATO held an unproven view that PAYG tax was owed.

The law denies normal access to justice and the truth. It represents a scary step in a progressive crushing of the rule of law in Australia under the excuse of tax collection. We’ve made a submission opposing the Bill. More...

An ATO survey of self-employed small business people who had been in dispute with the ATO during 2017 has produced an embarrassing result for the ATO. The survey, costing close to $1 million, assessed whether people had been treated fairly by the ATO.

The outcome is damning of the ATO’s treatment of the self-employed. If a private business were to receive results like this, heads would be chopped in the senior management ranks. Such results would demonstrate massive customer dissatisfaction. The business would quickly be out of business. More...