Another ACA story, Child support

[quote=Brian Hjelm;.

The self-employed who use the advantages to them of the Taxation Act to reduce their taxable income to an artificial level, should be assessed as having an assessable income of the average wage plus say 50%. After all, if your business isn't producing at least that, it is not a business and you should go get an honest job.[/quote]

Hijack Alert!!:p


You seem a little bitter about self employed people. Why is that?

As far as I am concerned, if it isn't against the law to minimize your taxable income, and if you don't do it, then you are a fool.

It wasn't all that long ago that the vast majority of people were self employed (think farmers, little corner stores, etc). Todays culture of working for large corporations (honest job) is relatively new (and, IMHO, not particularly good).

Not bitter at all, just stating the facts. I saw at DSS, people who lived in multi-million dollar homes, with luxury cars, racehorses, boats, etc who received full family allowance as their taxable income had been minimised to a pittance. Family allowance was assessed on taxable income. Pensions were assessed by DSS standards, which disallowed many of the deductions allowed by the ATO, in order to produce a realistic figure.

Extremes, we're starting to talk about extremes. There are always those that will abuse the system to their own benefit and they should be sought out and made an example of - no matter that they were "following all the rules", if it's outright abuse (which a lot of the extreme cases are) then the penalties should be back-dated to when the abuse started.

Of course there can be extenuating circumstances etc., and I can accept that - but there has to be a line that when it is crossed you get punished.

Life is full of greys and the law is full of black and whites. It doesn't mix. If you are openly flowting (spl?) the law to your own extreme advantage then don't muff about changing the law then trying to prosecute, prosecute / punish AND change the law.

I'm sorry, I'm starting to ramble - I know what I mean, listen to what I mean what I say!

I'm depressed, on my 3rd bourbon for the afternoon (4th coming shortly), missing my (soon to be 12) y/o daughter, and feeling like sh*t because of the poison I know her mother feeds her and there's nothing I can do about it.

This thread brings up memories I was having enough trouble repressing normally :angel:

Gah, time for another bourbon.

I have no argument about the DSS (I am assuming, Department of Social Security) assessing income to make for a realistic contribution (if required).

I was more curious about the average wage plus 50% comment, and your assumptions about what a business is or isn't and what, in your opinion, constitutes an honest job.

PS, it is not my intention to bait or incite argument, I just like to know / understand what motivates some peoples opinions / comments.

PPS. I do not have any children, therefore I don't pay any support / maintenance and I have never had any dealings with any social security type departments. As such, I am understandably naive about this topic.

:D

I'd have to agree with Brian. Self-employment _can_ be used to reduce a liability, to the point of being unfair if another is also being looked at for liability.

In my case, we had "shared" custody of two children, even though I had them during the week and the mother had them on weekends (so I ended up paying all school and daycare costs).

The mother was self-employed. Some creative accounting saw her taxable income drop to $12 000 per year, despite her owning an investment property, two cars, holidaying in the US and receiving $22 000 per year from teaching at TAFE.

I was a salaried worker - no way to hide any income. No matter how far up the CSA chain of re-assessment we went, we could never get them to change their assessment of the mother's income. So I paid through the nose for the privilege of letting my kids see their mother each weekend.

Thats only the surface of it - there were many more incidents that were just so biased towards the mother's position that I lost all faith in the system.

Cheers,

Gordon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BigJon

PPS. I do not have any children, therefore I don't pay any support / maintenance and I have never had any dealings with any social security type departments. As such, I am understandably naive about this topic.

:D

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You are soooooo lucky :(

To make matters worse I hold the gov. to blame for inciting young kids to have kids (for my way of thinking nobody under 25 should have kids, because we don't finish maturing mentally until around that age and we don't realise just what we can miss out on if we have kids early).

Hi all
Reading this thread with interest , (but i have no children (yet), i can't but feel for you all.

Did not know the Aussie CSA was from the same mould as the UK CSA.

Used to be a saying amoust mates when i was growing up and playing the town (as you do). That you wore condoms to protect you from the CSA , bugger wearing them for the stuff you could catch . They could do nothing to you compaired to the CSA

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grizzly_Adams

To make matters worse I hold the gov. to blame for inciting young kids to have kids (for my way of thinking nobody under 25 should have kids,

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As far as I can tell, increases in the baby bonus will probably mean an increase in single mothers and bogans with kids. After all, why work when the government will pay you for having sex?!

I take it further and think that having kids should be means tested as well as requiring a licence. I don't think that my taxes should go towards paying other people for over populating the planet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gghaggis

I'd have to agree with Brian. Self-employment _can_ be used to reduce a liability, to the point of being unfair if another is also being looked at for liability.

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I also agree that in a case such as yours, there should be a more fair and equitable way of doing things.

Having said that, I believe that tax avoidance (legally minimising your taxable income) makes perfect sense, as opposed to tax evasion (illegal tax minimisation). It is just unfortunate that the current system appears to rely too heavily on easily manipulated figures.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reads90

Hi all
Reading this thread with interest , (but i have no children (yet), i can't but feel for you all.

Did not know the Aussie CSA was from the same mould as the UK CSA.

Used to be a saying amoust mates when i was growing up and playing the town (as you do). That you wore condoms to protect you from the CSA , bugger wearing them for the stuff you could catch . They could do nothing to you compaired to the CSA

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G'day Ali.

Australia was one of the first to come up with a full "Child Support System".

The U.K. based their CSA equivalent on ours.

Feel sorry for us now? :cry: