Centrelink SCAM!! who voted in this government

[tryagain]

I don't mean to be rude, but even though this practice may not be uncommon (probably why our country is broke) but it looks to be unethical.

I don't know what your financial set-up is for your business and if its done to reduce tax - fair enough. But If you fudge the figures to make it look like your wife earns nothing so she can get a centrelink payment.

It's set up as a partnership as it was our capital (not just mine) but I get the income because I do all the work, if she was doing some of the work but I were claiming all the income as my own it could potentially be dodgy as you say but likely my increased taxes (losing a tax free threshold etc) would probably cancel out any additional family assistance benefit.
The most common issue is people doing the opposite and splitting the income equally to reduce the tax when the partner doesn't contribute equally, this is against the law and if my wife was to claim an income from the partnership as you suggested it would be illegal.
If you want to take a swipe and legal but ethically questionable tax avoidance practices then family trusts are the legal way for companies to divide up the income between family members that business cannot.

Then I don't think you should getting on your high horse as isn't that scamming the system just as bad as the bludgers?

I don't know where you got that I am getting on my high horse about the "bludgers" from as my attitude towards it is akin to nabs comment earlier, my issue is with centrelinks lack of competence.

[Dogsbreakfast]

It's set up as a partnership as it was our capital (not just mine) but I get the income because I do all the work, if she was doing some of the work but I were claiming all the income as my own it could potentially be dodgy as you say but likely my increased taxes (losing a tax free threshold etc) would probably cancel out any additional family assistance benefit.
The most common issue is people doing the opposite and splitting the income equally to reduce the tax when the partner doesn't contribute equally, this is against the law and if my wife was to claim an income from the partnership as you suggested it would be illegal.
If you want to take a swipe and legal but ethically questionable tax avoidance practices then family trusts are the legal way for companies to divide up the income between family members that business cannot.

I don't know where you got that I am getting on my high horse about the "bludgers" from as my attitude towards it is akin to nabs comment earlier, my issue is with centrelinks lack of competence.

Sorry my bad. Confused other peoples posts with yours so i apologise. I have seen so much scamming that rorts our tax systems from businesses transfer pricing, trusts etc to avoid paying any tax - and then have a go at welfare recipients so it irks me a bit, as it is just as bad.

Don't get me wrong - reducing tax is no problem. But paying none - like the 450+ big companies in australia that don't, is unethical.

[Moggy]

I'm pretty sure "income splitting" isn't "illegal". I do it and have been encouraged by the accountant to do so. The proportions actually vary each year according to our situation. Its been going on since adam was a boy & i would suggest if you think govt dont recognize spousal contributions then why would a split be 50-50 (at best) in divorce cases.
Now if you're getting additional support from govt then they may take a different approach.

Really though you shouldn't be surprised by this, the govt revenues are down by billions, so they have to try and get some money somehow, 8f they raised taxes, then we have a revolving door of politicians, which cant possibly be good for the country.

I might add that i refuse to deal with centrelink & the only time we have was when gst was introduced & i refused to go there. The person my wife had to deal with must've felt sorry for her & did the whole assessment based on bank statements. After 6 months i told her to cancel, not because we were flush with work again, but because i didnt want to owe the pricks anything

Theybactually ended up giving a bigger tax return & lump sum payments, their assessment not mine, the account always said if they get it wrong its their problem 😀

[DrewXT]

This may be the reason for all the bills to be sent out?

They had something go haywire with their BigData analytics engine, which sent the letters...

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[tryagain]

I'm pretty sure "income splitting" isn't "illegal". I do it and have been encouraged by the accountant to do so. The proportions actually vary each year according to our situation. Its been going on since adam was a boy.

If by your situation you mean how much you wife has contributed then yes that would be correct, if you mean by how much you have earnt then it's probably dodgy but yes not "illegal" (bad choice of words on my behalf) they won't send you to jail but could make you pay the extra tax if audited.
According to my accountant and what I have read from the ATO you can't just allocate part of your income to your wife if she doesn't contribute something substantial to the business (just answering the phones doesn't count). Like most things with tax law, it isn't simple and lots of factors come into play but it's safe to say that the typical tradie out doing the work and the wife doing the accounts wouldn't be considered close to a 50/50 split if the ATO had a look at it and would split partnership income in proportion to your respective personal efforts.
Your accountant would know far more than I would and yes it has been happening forever and your accountant is probably basing it on what you can likely get away with as opposed to reality like most things when it comes to tax.

Its been going on since adam was a boy & i would suggest if you think govt dont recognize spousal contributions then why would a split be 50-50 (at best) in divorce cases.

Totally different examples, one is pre-tax income of a business/company and one is the division of a family's assets, if kids are involved then they generally base it in a way that means the government's likely contribution to raising your kids is minimised, prenups are pretty useless once kids are involved for this reason but I am now way off topic.

[jclures]

Looks like Centerlink can not get any thing right.

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/centrelink-wrongly-hits-70000-families-with-bills-for-up-to-800-20160107-gm18jy.html

http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/thousands-of-people-forced-to-pay-back-part-of-their-welfare-payments-due-to-suspected-computer-glitch/news-story/10da94686ee8253c8cb2fca848ca00ff

[Bird]

Looks like Centerlink can not get any thing right.

Centerlink...
****ing things up right royally since 1980

[Bird]

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/centrelink-would-be-shut-down-for-fraud-over-debt-letters-says-malcolm-turnbulls-former-digital-guru-20170108-gtnz12.html

Centrelink would be shut down for fraud for its conduct in the recent botched "debt" recovery efforts if it were a private company, according to the Commonwealth's former digital government chief. 

[prodigyrf]

mickytd 31 has some good advice for those receiving notices and remember at this stage they're simply computer generated from data matching. Now you were either overpaid your entitlement at the time or you weren't and it's no different than us being in business and dealing with the ATO, etc. In that regard if your home doesn't have a filing cabinet and you're not keeping important records like this in this day and age, then you deserve being blindsided every time there's an administrative hiccup like this and you're a mug still living in the past.

I drum it into the kids and I have no sympathy for them discarding important records. Do you have a simple warranty file where you lodge receipts for relevant purchases where you can lay your hands on them quickly for a claim? Do you have another file with those handbooks and instructions for various appliances, etc? If not why not as you're supposed to read the instructions stoopids and pass them on if you resell items.

So if it transpires you were overpaid your legitimate entitlement then you enjoyed the extra benefit of that and you only have to pay it back in todays lesser value nominal dollars and you've had the benefit of the interest all that time so get over it and cough up because half this bloody country pay no net tax nowadays considering their clawback and Gummint handouts. Centrelink will no doubt help you out with the budgeting with an affordable repayment plan too.

[Dilligara]

we were one of the lucky many, that received a nice little xmas gift from the government, a debt for $6000.
after looking into it, they say my wife didn't report her earnings for the whole time she was working at her last job, which is a load of crap, cause i know she was. and of course there is no record of what she reported as it's from 2013. and the centrelink website doesn't let you go back that far to check it out.

i was told to go on their website to sort it out but there is no option for that, they just ask if you can pay it in full.

has anyone else gotten a nice xmas gift from them, if so did you get it sorted and how?


as you can see, i'm not the only one.

http://www.gympietimes.com.au/news/welfare-recipients-told-pay-back-false-centrelink-/3127727/

http://www.gympietimes.com.au/news/centrelink-debacle-worsens-aussies-face-forced-deb/3128382/?ref=hs

JUst a matter of record, it was the previous mob that introduced the data matching process

[prodigyrf]

And lest we forget those periodic ABS surveys of household income and expenditure-

"Only the top fifth of households ranked by their income - those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year in the financial year ending June 2012 - pay anything into the system net of the value of social security in cash and kind received, according to data from the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of household income.
The distribution of personal income tax - the federal government’s biggest source of revenue, raising about 45 per cent of the total ($165 billion this year) - is far more progressive than headline marginal tax rates suggest. Including the 1.5 per cent Medicare levy, Australia’s income tax rates range from 19 per cent for every dollar of income above $18,200 to 46.5 per cent for every dollar above $180,000. Most taxpayers face a 34.5 per cent marginal rate.
But average income tax rates on households’ privately generated income (ordinarily wages and salaries, but dividends and rental income too) ranged from 1.5 per cent for the bottom fifth of households in 2012 to 22 per cent for the top fifth.
The 1.73 million households in the middle quintile paid an average tax rate of 12.3 per cent on average incomes of $88,900. But the ABS survey estimates these households received $31 a week in Age Pension payments, $13 in disability payments, $48 in child-related payments and $12 in unemployment benefits, along with a host of others that whittle their average net tax payments down to $84 a week.
This sort of analysis excludes the value of government benefits beyond cash: “free” schools, hospitals, public transport and the like, which the ABS estimated to be $413 a week for these middle-ranked households. Netting everything off shows even “average”, let alone lower-income, households got back $2.70 for every $1 they paid in tax. Households in the bottom quintile enjoyed benefits worth more than 320 times what they paid in tax compared with about 10 times for those in the second-lowest quintile.
Notwithstanding the enormous variation in the circumstances of individuals and households within each of these five buckets - for instance, childless, healthy workers will pay in much more than unemployed families with sick children - the disparities are as remarkable as they are little-known."

So if you've been overpaid then suck it up princesses.

[Dilligara]

So if you've been overpaid then suck it up princesses.

[shanegtr]

I bet not one single you've been under paid letter gets sent

[Bird]

I bet not one single you've been under paid letter gets sent

[Pete79]

So if you've been overpaid then suck it up princesses.

Damn straight!!!
EVERYONE who has been over paid or made false claims to be given money they are not untitled to should be forced to repay every cent. No excuses!!

Lets start here first:
http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/the-10-most-outrageous-things-pollies-have-spent-our-money-on/news-story/254c2cb0858b56fb89ed65f547bee3f0

And don't get me started on those bloody pensioners;
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/retiring-federal-politicians-will-get-sixfigure-pensions-for-life-20160303-gna6c1.html


Time to clean up the whole lot I say.
If the relevant department is having troubles wording their letters to send out to these thieves I will gladly help them out......

[DrewXT]

JUst a matter of record, it was the previous mob that introduced the data matching process

I was just about to post the same... We tendered for the Centrelink outsource, and it wasn't done by the current party

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[Rumpig]

Just for the record....Centrelink (aka DHS / Department of Human Services) are the service delivery agency being blamed for this debacle, DSS (Department of Social Services) are the ones that gave the go ahead to implement this, even though they were told before it's release that the way it is being worked out is incorrect and doesn't work

[aussie9]

I can beat you all. I received a "request" for documentation for financial year 2010/2011 with regards to payment I supposedly received for NewStart for the sum of $21,975.
I have never been on New Start or unemployment, the dole or any other government payment. EVER.
Neither my wife or I have ever received a dollar for anything. Including a tax refund.
I'll be going public with this after I see my solicitor tomorrow. 



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Chapter 2
Wife and spent 4 hrs in a meeting with our legal representative and our local Federal Member
Rep from Centrelink was invited but no answer
The upshot of it all is until CL provide documentation that I was unemployed and on benefits, the can get stuffed
We have also billed them for our legal team and harassment an this has been  signed off by our Member who also reckons "unofficially" we aren't the only ones in this situation
More to follow??


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tryagain]

So if you've been overpaid then suck it up princesses.

This bit 100%

"Only the top fifth of households ranked by their income - those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year in the financial year ending June 2012 - pay anything into the system net of the value of social security in cash and kind received, according to data from the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of household income.
The distribution of personal income tax - the federal government’s biggest source of revenue, raising about 45 per cent of the total ($165 billion this year) - is far more progressive than headline marginal tax rates suggest. Including the 1.5 per cent Medicare levy, Australia’s income tax rates range from 19 per cent for every dollar of income above $18,200 to 46.5 per cent for every dollar above $180,000. Most taxpayers face a 34.5 per cent marginal rate.
But average income tax rates on households’ privately generated income (ordinarily wages and salaries, but dividends and rental income too) ranged from 1.5 per cent for the bottom fifth of households in 2012 to 22 per cent for the top fifth.
The 1.73 million households in the middle quintile paid an average tax rate of 12.3 per cent on average incomes of $88,900. But the ABS survey estimates these households received $31 a week in Age Pension payments, $13 in disability payments, $48 in child-related payments and $12 in unemployment benefits, along with a host of others that whittle their average net tax payments down to $84 a week.
This sort of analysis excludes the value of government benefits beyond cash: “free” schools, hospitals, public transport and the like, which the ABS estimated to be $413 a week for these middle-ranked households. Netting everything off shows even “average”, let alone lower-income, households got back $2.70 for every $1 they paid in tax. Households in the bottom quintile enjoyed benefits worth more than 320 times what they paid in tax compared with about 10 times for those in the second-lowest quintile.
Notwithstanding the enormous variation in the circumstances of individuals and households within each of these five buckets - for instance, childless, healthy workers will pay in much more than unemployed families with sick children - the disparities are as remarkable as they are little-known."

This bit 0%

Where to start on such a one-sided BS opinion piece, The whole schtick about the indignation due to minimal net tax payers doesn't hold up to analysis, from the article
1)less than half the government's "pot" of money comes from income tax, the majority then comes from other sources
2)the government then uses this pot of money to provide services, which is why they exist
We are then supposed to be surprised that the majority of us get more back in the form of services than we put in purely in income tax? The government has other income to, like it taxes business, on our behalf to provide it's services and the businesses make their money from you guessed it, us. 

The title of this article (not quoted here) was "No, the rich don’t pay a ‘fair share’ of tax. They pay all of it" which is so unbelievably wrong I don't know how it ever got published, again from the article "Based on income tax returns from the 2010-11 financial year, the top 1 per cent of individual income earners - who in the 2010-11 tax year were those with taxable incomes of more than $281,800 a year - paid $23.55bn or 17.7 per cent of the total income tax haul" this is 17.5% of the 45% that makes up the governments pot. That makes up just 7% of the Governments income which is a long way from "all of it".

Yet it's trying to convince us that we should somehow feel for these top 1% as they contribute 7% of the Governments income, even though their share of the income pie is 8% and that 8% figure is from after they have most likely benefited from multiple creative deductions.

Bottom line is, no the rich don't pay all the tax, far from it and the talk of net taxpayers is flawed unless you take into account more than just income tax.   

[prodigyrf]

tryagain you don't understand quintile statistics so you're blathering emotion against facts but it's a common malaise. High income earners also pay more GST and property rates, taxes and charges so there's no relief for them there unless they're non drinkers and smokers.

Anyway here's Robert Gottliebsen reporting in The Oz on the flip side of the coin and those of us in business who've always paid our bills on time would wholeheartedly support the ATO with measures to clean up the amateurs and crooks-

"The government plans to allow the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to disclose to credit reporting bureaus the names of those who owe the money unless they have “effectively engaged with the ATO to manage these debts”.
The reality is that the moment those names are published all bank and supplier credit will be withdrawn — that’s what happens in the small business community. And as soon as bank and supplier credit is withdrawn almost all the businesses will fold.
Accordingly, Turnbull and Morrison must know they are taking a step that will send broke tens of thousands of businesses. Taking such a draconian step requires a structure that is clear and fair to all.
To everyone’s credit the Australian Taxation Office says that anyone who enters into a payment arrangement will not be named. But much more that that is required to deliver fairness.
Before I detail how Turnbull and Morrison can deliver fairness I want to emphasise that, despite the draconian consequences, in principle, I support the action. I have met small business after small business that, when there is a snag, they stop paying the tax man (and superannuation). Before long they are in a deep mess. It seems that in 2015-16 some 28 per cent of small business tax liabilities were paid late. While this confirms the above pattern it also underlines the brittleness of large parts of the Australian entrepreneurial and small business community in the current economic environment.
If they knew they were going to be named to credit bureaus ---and therefore be bankrupted — small enterprises would think twice about going down the non-payment of tax route and instead change their business model and/or raise capital.
The time to take such action is when the problem arises and not when some huge back tax bill has arisen. Accordingly going forward this “naming measure” will save thousands of businesses and make the small business sector much more healthy."

Hear hear!

[Wunderlust]

So we downloaded the letter today. They are claiming over $6k of over payments.. the problem is the dates they have given that the missus worked don't even tie up with when she was employed.

What an absolute farce..a call tomorrow to tell them to actually get their facts right before demanding anything. Just to add insult to injury they were informed on a weekly basis going back to 2010 to 2011 what was earnt and when. Perhaps they can get this out of their own system instead of wasting our time repeating this information again?

I have no issue if it is indeed an overpayment, however I have a big issue with incorrect details, demands and no evidence of their claims.. just a pay us now.

**** wits

[prodigyrf]

Guys, this is the public circus you're dealing with, so all you need do is write a letter telling them basically they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery and none of it concurs with your records and that'll kick it upstairs to some middle ranking bozos intray and that'll probably be the last you'll hear of it, except for a letter to say after reviewing your details, etc, etc we have amended your account to zero. Yours sincerely the nanny state.

[Wunderlust]

Yeah but what planet does any government spend huge amounts of money sending out automated letters knowing they are wrong. How much doe this cost us the taxpayer in the longer term and the poor folk who are receiving such drivel without even the basic facts.

[tryagain]

tryagain you don't understand quintile statistics so you're blathering emotion against facts

you quoted from an opinion piece, yes he used statistics and I didn't question those but his use of them was terrible and his main argument sensationalised and unsupported by them. If you want something far more factual and less op-ed here is a policy brief compiled by an academic that makes similar points that I did, although it's a much longer read.

High income earners also pay more GST and property rates, taxes and charges so there's no relief for them there unless they're non drinkers and smokers.

I never claimed high-income don't pay more tax, of course they do, but to quote from the above-linked doc  "To come back to the argument put by the former Treasurer, Joe Hockey, that high income groups pay a very high share of taxes, the main reason for this that they have a much higher share of income than their share in the population. "



"

[Fizzie]

Many years ago, Kerry Packer openly & publicly admitted to a Parliamentary enquiry that he paid 1c in the dollar income tax. OK, on $4bill (or whatever he was worth) that still adds up to quite a bit, but it's certainly not the 46.5% that "rich people" supposedly pay.

At the time, he also said that anyone who doesn't do everything legally possible to reduce the amount of tax they pay is a drongo.