Page 3237 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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work of the Revenue Office and the Commissioner for ACT Revenue in administering the tax laws of the territory. For these reasons we will not be supporting this motion this afternoon.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (5.46): The Greens will not be supporting this motion.
I have to say that the idea that the Assembly would support a motion to not enforce a law of this place is worrying. It would set a very poor precedent and send a wrong message to the community. I would echo Mr Barr’s comments around the fact that this is not an area the Assembly should be getting itself involved in. There is not a place for politics in all of this. There is an independent commissioner, there are laws in place, and we need to allow them to be carried out.
I make the observation that it is highly problematic and very worrying that the Assembly is being asked to base this—and Mr Smyth has based his motion—on a series of assertions, and we do not have evidence of those assertions. I will come back to this when addressing the substantive matter, but it is worth making the general observation that, no matter what the subject is, to accept assertions without evidence I do not think is the proper and right way to go.
I have read the paper that was put together by the Business Council and I have sought further information from them. I have also had a briefing from the Commissioner for Revenue and his office. I have to say that, prior to last week, I have not had a single representation from any particular business about this issue. Certainly in the most general sense the Business Council have raised the issue of reducing the rate of payroll tax a number of times. Given that we now have the lowest taxing scheme in the country for businesses that pay less than $4.7 million in wages, I cannot imagine that that continues to be the issue that it was for the council previously.
The motion itself recognises that we are part of a harmonised payroll tax scheme; that is, except for schedule 2, we have exactly the same scheme as New South Wales and Victoria. The motion is basically asserting that the commissioner is incorrectly applying the law. This is a serious allegation and one that I could not find supporting evidence for. Having spoken to the Commissioner for Revenue, I understand that there are a number of interjurisdictional processes that have taken place over the last two years which have not raised any concerns about the inconsistent application of the law here in the ACT and that there are also ongoing initiatives to ensure the consistent and effective application of the harmonised legislation across the different jurisdictions.
I have also had my office look through the court and tribunal decisions, and there simply is not evidence that the commissioner is incorrectly applying the law. In fact, in ACAT the only published decisions concerning payroll tax are: Paan Investments Pty Ltd—which is in liquidation—and the Commissioner for ACT Revenue, which upheld the commissioner’s decision; and Dataflex, which ultimately went to the Court of Appeal, which also upheld the commissioner’s decision. Equally, I cannot find any decisions in the Supreme Court concerning the misapplication of the Payroll Tax Act. There simply are not court decisions overturning the commissioner’s application of the act.
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