All News

Last week (22 July) the Morrison government announced that JobKeeper and JobSeeker are being extended past the current cut-off of at the end of September. But there are changes to eligibility and the amounts being paid.

We’ve waited a week to produce this update to check some details with the ATO. Be aware that the legislation for the extension has not passed Parliament, so our summary below is the best information available at the moment. More...

The Senate is currently considering a Bill that will require large businesses to report their payments to small business suppliers. Being paid on time is a top priority for all self-employed small business people.

We gave evidence to the Senate last week (8 July) and made the following points.

We expect the Morrison government to fully implement its election promise on pay-on-time issues. This is a three-phase promise it made, namely: More...

Last week, we reported the release by the ATO of threats to treat people who’ve accessed JobKeeper (and other programs) of being tax fraudsters. The problem, we say, is the ability of the ATO’s auditors to apply their ‘view’ as to fraud, which then becomes ‘fact’ at law, subject to prosecution. And the only effective appeal is to the ATO itself!!  More...

We can’t believe that, for all the great work the ATO has done with implementing the Covid-19 support packages, it's decided to blow up that good work.

Last week (23 June) the ATO released a statement ‘ATO zeroes in on COVID-19 fraud’. The ATO has declared that it reckons lots of Australians are committing fraud in applying for Covid-19 support (JobKeeper, Cash Flow Boost, early release of super, etc.) But look at what they are targeting. More...

The Australian Taxation Office has been subject to heavy criticism following its announcement last Friday (22 May) that the JobKeeper program will cost $60 billion less than the predicted $130 billion.

In other words, the government’s (Treasury and ATO) original prediction is wrong, that some 6.5 million Australians will need JobKeeper support. Instead they now say around 3.5 million will need JobKeeper. This could be good news.  More...

We’ve had lots of people contacting us confused as to when they will receive the JobKeeper payment. We’ve checked with the ATO.

***You will NOT receive JobKeeper payments from the ATO if you don’t fill out the necessary online form.

The online form became available on Monday (4 May 2020). More...

This is to give you an update on the support package available for self-employed, small business people, particularly if you are a sole trader.

On Monday we released this summary which has generated very high Internet traffic.  More...

We’ve been pretty quiet during January on issuing news alerts. That’s because we’ve been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes preparation for 2020. This year we’re making a big push for key reform issues for self-employed small business people. The timing is right because there is heightened political interest in small business issues.

Our 2020 campaign agenda has three key targets, all to do with small business people receiving a fair deal: More...

There has been a major development in the last days of Federal Parliament for this year. For the first time a parliamentarian has made a clear call for reform of the Australian Taxation Office.

Liberal elder statesman Senator Eric Abetz is a former senior minister and government leader in the Senate. Last Wednesday (4 December) he delivered a punchy speech in which he demonstrated why the ATO needs to be reformed. He also outlined a model for how that should be done. More...

It’s not long before we all attempt to eat too much Christmas pudding and hopefully settle down for a decent holiday relax! To all SEA members: our grateful thanks for your support during this very big year. Your membership contributions keep our efforts going, defending the rights of self-employed people.

To all our followers, including the many thousands of our social media watchers: our Seasons Greetings. We’d really appreciate your membership and support. You can join here.  More...