Industry teams up to fight Government on payroll tax
TheFinancialPlanning Association(FPA) and theInvestment and Financial Services Association(IFSA) have formed a joint task force to fight against state Government proposals to impose payroll tax duties on dealer groups.
The taskforce, which will meet this week, will be made up of the FPA’s Policy and Government Relations Tax Committee and IFSA’s Tax Committee.
The payroll tax issue has come to a head over the past 12 months after the New South Wales Treasury’s Office of State Revenue (OSR) issued an adverse ruling to a number of dealer groups, including Bridges Personal Investment Services, finding they were liable for unpaid payroll tax.
In a move reminiscent of the debate over the application of the Alienation of Personal Services Income (APSI) regulations to financial planners, it is understood the OSR’s ruling was based on the assumption that financial planners were direct employees of the dealer groups and not self-employed individuals, opening the dealers up to payroll duties.
The NSW Treasury has since released a report arguing against such assumptions.
However, the report’s recommendations are yet to be adopted by the NSW State Government, prompting both the FPA and IFSA to step up their campaign on the issue.
A spokesperson for the FPA says similar issues are looming for financial planners and their dealer groups in Victoria and Western Australia, making the matter potentially the biggest threat to dealer group revenue since the APSI debate was resolved in favour of the financial planning industry last year.
The FPA’s Policy and Government Relations Tax Committee includesZurich’s Paul Baker,MLC’s Chris Drummer,Perpetual’s Brian Hor,AMP’s Leonard Whelan and FPA board member Colin Scully.
IFSA’s Tax Committee is headed by the association’s new deputy chief executive, Jo-Anne Bloch.
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