Aussie Painting Contractor September 2020

Staying Focused with a Simple Method Know what you should be focused on

Personal Leave Entitlements

Will be accrued on the basis of the hours worked

TOP TAX TIPS FOR TRADIES AND APPRENTICES

5 worst nightmares

for a trade business owner How you can protect yourself from them

www.aussiepaintersnetwork.com.au

Many great careers start with a Pathway. Whether that be, beginning your Apprenticeship whilst still at school, or by finding an employer ready to take you on from the very start.

Become a Painting Apprentice

A painting apprenticeship takes 3 to 4 years to complete dependant on the individual student. They get paid as they learn rather than building up a debt by going to university. An apprentice learns the theory behind painting as well as the practical application of working with others on the job.

Become a Qualified Painter

After completing an apprenticeship, you become a qualified painter. You can continue working for painting companies or building companies on wages for as long as you like. Your wage should increase as you now have your qualification.

Become a Painting Business Owner

After completing your apprenticeship this is where you take the leap of working for yourself and potentially put on staff and your own apprentice. At this point we recommend that you contact Aussie Painters Network as well as other organisations and associations.

Are you running a Painting Business?

See how we can assist you in growing your business with apprentices!

CONTRIBUTORS • Andrew Linden • Anthony Igra • Helen Kay • Jim Baker • Kristen Sobeck • Leo Babauta • Monroe Porter • Peter Varela • Robert Bauman • Robert Breunig • Sandra Price • Vanessa Petch • Warren Staples

EDITOR

From the Editor Hey Everyone, Welcome to the 96th Edition of the Aussie Painting Contractor Magazine.

In this month’s edition as with all months, we have a fabulous team of contributors that have their unique niche that they specialise in and can be of massive assistance to all painting business owners. Accountant, Bookkeeper, Business Mentors and Consultants, Debt Collector, HR Consultant, Solicitor, and other business owners that are happy sharing their expertise in different areas business related.

If you need any assistance in your business, I suggest you reach out to these people as I know they have helped plenty within our industry. Remember, support those that support our industry.

As we head towards our 100th edition, I have been going back through some of the early editions of the mag and really found some interesting articles that are extremely relevant to running your business today. Go and check out the older editions.

Nigel Gorman EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Till next month, Happy Painting!!

Caroline Miall GRAPHIC DESIGNER J. Anne Delgado

Nigel Gorman

nigel@aussiepaintersnetwork.com.au

07 3555 8010

Contents 30

RETIREMENT at Last

(why neither matter unless you get paid!)

An advise when you get closer to retirement

09

Staying Focused WITH A SIMPLE METHOD

33

Don’t Let Your Employees Hold You Hostage

12

For some companies, JobKeeper has become DividendKeeper

16

TOP TAX TIPS for Tradies and Apprentices

38

CHANGES TO Personal Leave Entitlements

40

Stopping Deviations From The Deal GETS YOU PAID

44

We need super, but we’re taxing it the wrong way round

45

Industry Idiots

46

Important Contacts

06

Differences Between GROSS AND NET PROFIT

What you can claim on your tradie or apprentice tax return...

19

Subcontractor Agreements: Don’t Make Your Subbies Your Liability Too often written agreements are disregarded for a handshake.

24

5 worst nightmares for a trade business owner How you can protect yourself from them

Opinions and viewpoints expressed in the Aussie Painting Contractor Magazine do not necessarily represent those of the editor, staff or publisher or any Aussie Painters Network’s staff or related parties. The publisher, Aussie Painters Network and the Aussie Painting Contractor Magazine personnel are not liable for any mistake, misprint or omission. Information contained in the Aussie Painting Contractor Magazine is intended to inform and illustrate and should not be taken as financial, legal or accounting advice. You should seek professional advice before making business related decisions. We are not liable for any losses you may incur directly or indirectly as a result of reading Aussie Painting Contractor Magazine. Reproduction of any material or contents of the magazine without written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited.

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Differences Between

GROSS AND NET PROFIT (and why neither matter unless you get paid!)

Wondering if you're doing everything you can to boost revenue and cut costs? Or if your business is actually more profitable this year than it was last?

The best way to answer these questions is with a thorough assessment of profitability. That’s where gross and net profit calculations come in. These are two of the most important metrics for measuring your capacity to generate earnings relative to costs and expenses.

Let’s take a look at the differences between gross and net profit, and what they can reveal about the financial health of your business.

Gross profit: a general overview of profitability You can calculate your company's gross profit by subtracting the cost of the goods or services you sell from your total revenue, over a specific period of time. The equation looks like this: Sales - cost of goods sold = gross profit When determining the cost of goods sold (otherwise known as COGS), businesses take into account all of the processes involved in their production and delivery to customers, including: • raw materials • manufacturing • packaging • shipping and fuel.

Once you know your gross profit, you can divide it by your total revenue to calculate your gross profit margin – a percentage that shows exactly how much money is left over after you’ve covered your COGS. This calculation will show you how efficiently you're managing your resources – and where optimization is needed – so you can work toward a healthier bottom line.

6 | Aussie Painting Contractor

Net profit: drilling down to profits after all expenses The net profit calculation goes a step further by determining how much revenue remains after subtracting all expenses, including COGS. Net profit reveals your precise profit per dollar of sales after deducting operating expenses, taxes, interest paid on debt, etc. In order to keep abreast of your financial status, it’s wise to calculate net profit every month.

Determining your net profit is crucial for a number of reasons, including: • knowing how much you can safely pay yourself each month, or divide among your business partners; • applying for a business loan, where net profit is an important part of the lender’s free cash flow analysis • measuring performance against the industry benchmark and your main competitors.

Protect your profits by ensuring you get paid It goes without saying that calculating gross and net profits won’t be very useful if you’re having trouble collecting payment from your customers. Staying on top of accounts receivable is crucial for maintaining positive cash flow, turning a healthy profit, and growing your business.

Here are a few tips for ensuring timely payment: • require payment up front, and only offer 30 day terms to clients who have proven their trustworthiness • track invoices weekly, contact clients • immediately after the payment deadline has been missed, and work together to set a new deadline • suggest an installment program for clients who are encountering financial difficulties.

Tighter invoice collection combined with clear insights into profitability will pave the way to smarter, more efficient management – your key to long-term sustainable business growth.

Sandra Price

www.tradiebookkeepingsolutions.com.au Facebook : Tradie Bookkeeping Solutions

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Staying Focused

WITH A SIMPLE METHOD

If you’re in a job where you could be doing a thousand things, staying focused for most of the day can become a big problem. We want to do too much.

Today I’d like to talk about this hard problem faced by anyone doing meaningful work.

If you don’t tackle this, you’ll be left feeling scattered and unfocused, overwhelmed and disconnected.

If you can take it on … you can create an experience of getting meaningful things done.

How does that sound? Let’s dive in.

Staying Focused on Meaningful Tasks I don’t think I need to go too much into the problem of feeling scattered and unfocused during the day — most of us are pretty damn familiar with that.

So how do we tackle it?

The method is fairly simple, though of course it’s so easy to be led astray from it (I lose this thread all the time). I’ve been advocating this for almost 14 years now: 1. Make a short list. I recommend 3-5 important, meaningful tasks. And then a few more smaller tasks you’ll take on later in the day when you don’t have as much focus power. These are the tasks you’ll take on today (ideally make the list the evening before).

2. Order the list, and pick the top one. If you spend time the evening before, or just a few minutes first thing in the morning, prioritizing your short list … you won’t have to think about it when the time comes to execute. This is really important.

Don’t let yourself negotiate — pick the top thing on your list and don’t question it at execution time.

3. Execute your ass off on this one thing. Focus on this and nothing else. Close off distractions.

Don’t worry about everything else that needs to be done. This is the only thing in the universe.

If you get interrupted, take care of the interruption (or put it on your list for later), and then get back to focusing. Pour yourself into it, with as much meaning as you can (more on this below).

4. Repeat. When you’re done with the task or can’t work on it because you’re waiting on something, pick the next one on the list. When you don’t have focus power anymore (late afternoon for me), take care of the smaller, easy tasks that need to get done.

I keep one long list of tasks that I need (or would like) to do sometime (my backlog), and pick from that each day.

It’s important to keep the list short — you don’t want to have everything you could possibly do on the short list.

2020 September Issue | 9

Let’s talk about the common problems you’ll face — especially the biggest problem of all.

The Common Problems (Including the Big One) There are some key problems to know about and take on.

If you finish your short list tasks early, you could get more from your long list … or take the rest of the day off!

The biggest problem, if you’re doing this method, is feeling like you don’t want to do a task, and avoiding by going to easy tasks or distractions. This is so common that there are a thousand books written about it. Don’t beat yourself up about it, it’s a human trait — just notice. It’s easy to notice with this method, because you always know what you should be focused on.

When you notice yourself avoiding something hard or uncertain … the method is to turn towards it. Turn towards what you’re avoiding. Open to the discomfort, embrace it as training and growth. Bring curiosity. Do it even when you don’t feel like it.

If you don’t get them all done (very common), just put them back on the long list or carry them forward to tomorrow’s short list. You only need two text documents (or Google docs) to do this method.

This is the training. The simple method makes it easier.

Take it on, and see what happens.

This method solves the very very common problem of trying to do too much — it asks you to only do a few things, and really only one thing at a time. You always know what that one thing is, so there’s no overwhelming number of choices.

a successful ‘simplicity’ blogger and author from California, the creator of top 25 Blog

10 | Aussie Painting Contractor

Leo Babauta ZEN HABITS

For some companies, JobKeeper has become DividendKeeper They are paying out, even though the future looks awful In this recession, unlike in previous ones, governments have chosen to help pay salaries to keep workers in work rather than pay unemployment benefits when they laid off.

It means that the July unemployment rate revealed on Thursday was 7.5% instead of the 8.3% it would have been had those working zero hours but being paid by JobKeeper been counted as out of work.

This approach has kept employees and firms ready for work at a time when it is far from clear when things will improve.

Implicit in the deal was that firms in need of JobKeeper would behave as if they were in times of immense uncertainty and not pay big dividends to shareholders on the assumption that things were rosy.

It is early in the company reporting season but already there are signs that millions of dollars in increased

12 | Aussie Painting Contractor

dividends are being paid out by companies that received millions of dollars of JobKeeper.

As The Guardian’s Ben Butler puts it what we are seeing is a transfer of millions of dollars from taxpayers – the community at large – to shareholders, some of whom are already quite rich By supporting the wages of employees in companies at risk, the government freed up money the companies could use to pay shareholders increased dividends rather than fortify themselves against that risk.

It enabled them to shovel out of the door the money the government was shovelling in, leaving themselves no better prepared than before.

And they need to be prepared.

The last thing we need is big dividends

In April the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority wrote to banks and insurers asking them to “seriously consider deferring decisions on the appropriate level of dividends until the outlook is clearer”.

Even where they were confident they had the resources they needed, their dividends should be at a “materially reduced level”.

Earlier that day we learnt that the private sector wage index had stopped for the first time in its 27 year history.

A graph presented to Commonwealth Bank shareholders on Wednesday shows that almost all of the increase in deposits in its accounts comes from government benefits rather than wages and salaries.

Commonwealth Bank results presentation Some 10% of all bank loan books are now made up of loans on which borrowers have been granted deferred payments.

Among small businesses, 17% of repayments have been deferred, a proportion set to climb from September as Job keeper subsidies are reduced and withdrawn.

Commonwealth Bank Chief Matt Comyn. Maximum dividend, but outlook highly uncertain.

Perhaps precipitously, it relaxed the guidance on July 29, noting that uncertainty had “reduced somewhat”.

A few days later Melbourne went into Stage 4 lock down.

Its new guideline was for banks to retain at least half of their earnings when making decisions on dividends, an instruction the Commonwealth Bank followed to the letter on Wednesday paying out 49.95% of its earnings as dividends.

That night on ABC’s The Business the bank’s chief executive Matt Comyn conceded the outlook was “highly uncertain”.

In March the government gave companies temporary relief from rules that prevent them from trading while insolvent.

Read more: The last thing companies should be doing right now is paying dividends For the moment the change has pushed insolvencies down to an all time low, creating an unknown amount of zombie companies not fully alive but not yet dead.

When the temporary relief expires (Sept., unless it is extended) there’s talk of an tidal wave of insolvencies.

It raises concerns that for now many companies are announcing dividends that shouldn’t and ordinarily wouldn’t be paid.

2020 September Issue | 13

Some (not the Commonwealth Bank) are using JobKeeper to pay them.

notwithstanding the record low rates at which they can obtain funds.

Why dividends, now of all times?

In January the head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Rod Sims warned that unless companies lowered their hurdle rates they would “risk missing investment opportunities to foreign raiders”.

There is a relationship between dividends, share prices and executive pay. Australian companies that pay out big dividends keep their share prices high.

Many Australians receiving dividend imputation cheques, including many retirees, hold shares because of them.

Without them, share prices would fall and executives would be denied their bonuses.

It’s something akin to an undeclared investment vstrike by corporate Australia, something akin to “heads, shareholders win; tails, employee, creditors and the rest of us lose”.

One way to ensure that there is money available for dividends is to rule out new investments that can’t achieve a high rate of return, meaning money can be paid out to shareholders instead.

Andrew Linden

Read more: High hurdle rates are holding back businesses, but perhaps they should be

Senior Lecturer in Management, RMIT University

Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe has complained that hurdle rates of 13% to 14% seem to be “hardwired into the corporate culture in some companies”

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TOP TAX TIPS for Tradies and Apprentices There are a whole lot of ATO rules that apprentices and tradie employees need to follow when they prepare their tax return. This year you can expect things to be a little different to the usual way of preparing for your tax return.

wages and allowances for the financial year. If you’ve changed apprenticeships midway through the year, you’ll need to include statements from both employers.

If you are receiving JobKeeper payments they’ll need to be included as income.

This is not just the result of the extraordinary times we’re living in, but also due to the implementation of the Single Touch Payroll system which has been rolled out progressively by the ATO last year.

If you would like to find out more about the changes in accessing your payment summaries, download the ATO Employee Fact Sheet here.

If your employer uses the Single Touch Payroll system, you can access your income records via the myGov portal. An employer who does report to the ATO this way will not have to give you a payment summary.

Instead, you will get an end-of-year income statement in ATO online services through myGov. Your employer or tax agent could also download this information for you, if you have not set up a myGov account.

On the other hand, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked recently how the Coronavirus support payments and concessions from the government will affect their 2019-20 tax return, I would be a rich man.

2. When you prepare your tax return, you’ll need to include all your income earnt, including bonuses, and regardless of when you earnt it during the financial year.

In this article I’ve put together a summary of all you need to know about how to go about preparing for your tax return and what you can claim on your tradie or apprentice tax return.

3. Include all allowances shown on your income statement or payment summary as income in your tax return. You may receive an allowance to pay for certain expenses such as meals when you’re travelling or to compensate you for an aspect of your work, for example, carrying unpleasant or dangerous goods.

Wages, allowances and reimbursements.

Sometimes there is a little confusion about these three types of income/payments and how they are being treated by the ATO when they assess your tax return. In particular, there are different rules around allowances and reimbursements. But first things first...

1. You’ll need an Income Statement or a Payment Summary from your employer that shows all your

16 | Aussie Painting Contractor

4. If your employer pays you the exact amount for expenses you incur (either before or after you incur them), the payment is a reimbursement. The ATO doesn’t consider a reimbursement to be an allowance. If you’re reimbursed for expenses you incur, then you don’t include the reimbursement as income in your tax return, and you can’t claim a deduction for them.

Typical Tax Deductions for Painters

We’ve put together a list of tax deductions specifically for painters. Depending on how the business you’re working in is set up, you could take advantage of more than one of these deduction options.

• Motor vehicle travel to and from work for employees with shifting workplaces (who regularly work at more than one site each day before returning home) or transport bulky equipment.

• Motor vehicle travel between job sites, to pick up materials, or attend training courses.

• Computers, tools and equipment.

• Phone and internet - work %.

• Dogs, when used at worksites to guard tools against theft. The vet bills and pet food bills may qualify as a tax deduction.

• Overnight travel expenses visiting clients or attending different workplaces - includes airfares, meals and accommodation.

• Protective clothing including sun-protection, safety-coloured vests, steel-capped boots, gloves, overalls, and wet weather gear.

• Overtime meals- if overtime meal allowance received under an industrial award.

• Sun protection costs including sunglasses, sunscreen and cosmetics.

• Union fees, licences, registrations and subscriptions.

• Courses, seminars and self-education expenses.

• Home office running expenses.

For information about income and tax deductions for Tradies, visit the ATO webpage.

If you have any questions about your 2019-2020 tax return, call my office on 3399 8844 and we’d be happy to answer them. You can also visit our website at www.straighttalkat.com.au and complete your details on our Home page to request an appointment.

Please Note: Many of the comments in this article are general in nature and anyone intending to apply the information to practical circumstances should seek professional advice to independently verify their interpretation and the information’s applicability to their particular circumstances.

2020 September Issue | 17

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Subcontractor Agreements: Don’t Make Your Subbies Your Liability If you are a trade business owner who engages subcontractors, you need a well drafted subcontractors agreement in place because everything is fine… until it’s not.

In business, it helps to be proactive rather than reactive where possible. Have a plan and surround yourself with advisors who can identify risks in your business and help you implement measures to address those risks.

One of the biggest risks I see with my trade business owner clients is having people working with them who have no contracts in place. None!! Sometimes we determine that employment agreements need to be drawn up, but often all that is required is a subcontractors agreement - Simple!

A contractor differs from one of your employees, as they are running their own business. Your trade business may turn to subcontractors for extra man power on a busy week, or you may need to bring in a specialist in a different area to get the job done. It may be ongoing work for many years, or a one off.

Subcontractors are nothing new, however all too often written agreements are disregarded for a handshake. While this may be a friendly way to work it is not legally binding and does not provide protection to your trade business, as it does not transfer any risk to the third-party subcontractor.

2020 September Issue | 19

Here are 5 reasons why you should have a contract in place: 1) To Document the Details A subcontractor agreement details the specific relationship between parties and makes clear their responsibilities, which holds them accountable. For example, the Subcontractor is responsible for the payment of all taxes, fees and other charges that apply to it in performance of the Services. The Principal is not liable to the Contractor in this regard.

2) To Deal with Workplace Health and Safety Health and safety obligations should be passed onto the subcontractor where permitted at law. By signing the subcontractor agreement, the subcontractor has declared that they will use safe equipment and give their staff adequate training.

A written agreement would also include a notification obligation clause. This means that if a subcontractor identifies a risk to health and safety, they are contractually required to call ‘tools down’ and notify you. This again is protecting your trade business and passing the responsibility onto the subcontractor to act appropriately.

3) To Document Insurance Obligations A subcontractor is required to provide all their own insurances for themselves and their personnel.

By signing the subtractor agreement, they adopt accountability (instead of the trade business owner) if they do not in fact hold the appropriate insurance to perform the job.

While this may be the case in a handshake agreement also, a formal contract proves that both parties agreed to this, if things were to go wrong.

5) Include Dispute Resolution Procedures This is not something most people want to think about when initiating a business relationship. However, this is the part that can save you from strife and costly litigation if things get ugly.

A well drafted subcontractor agreement can include mandatory mediation and/or arbitration as an alternative to litigation when there is a dispute. This could be the difference that saves your business from severe financial distress and keeps it ticking over nicely.

Unfortunately, there is never a ‘one size fits all’ formula to apply. Every situation is unique and it can be tricky to wrap your head around some areas of the law. To ensure you are setting yourself and your business up for success, it is always best to consult a legal professional with expertise in the field.

Let’s Talk! A free consultation with us can help to tackle your legal issues.

Furthermore, if an unhappy client turns to you regarding a problem, for example with substandard work performed by a subcontractor, you want to be able to hold the subcontractor liable. Get them back to fix it up at their costs. Indemnity insurance covers costs involved such as repair or remuneration, if they are responsible for the issue arising.

4) Agreement Regarding

Equipment and Tools

A formal agreement will make clear that the subcontractor is responsible for providing all (or most) of the equipment, tools of the trade, and other assets required to complete the work. This also includes work vans and travel expenses.

20 | Aussie Painting Contractor

P: 0402 318 033| E: helen.kay@riselegal.com.au

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5 worst nightmares

for a trade business owner HOW YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF FROM THEM There are many risks that you face when working in the trades, and even more when you own a trades business.

The damage caused goes far beyond the money lost.

The stress and impact on your mental health can sometimes outweigh the financial impact.

As the owner you’re not just worried about yourself, but you’re also responsible for your team and your clients.

For many tradies this is seen as a risk of being a business owner, but you can protect yourself financially.

As business owners we can take the attitude of “that’s how it is” and live with those risks, or we can try to protect ourselves against them.

Below we’ve put together a list of five nightmare scenarios for any trade business owner. In some cases they are real-life stories from our own clients.

• A large client goes under without paying you • Your work results in the death of a third party • One of your team suffers a major injury at work • A new home you are building is destroyed • You suffer an injury that leaves you unable to work • 10 Years in Business

1. A large client goes under without paying you We’ve heard so many horror stories from subcontractors who’ve had a builder go into administration owning tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

TRADE CREDIT INSURANCE Trade credit insurance protects you against losses caused by a client going into bankruptcy etc.

In the event that one of your clients fails, the insurer will pay you the bulk of the outstanding amount.

The insurer will still try to recover money through the administration process, and if they do happen to recover additional funds they may share some of that with you, in order to achieve a full recovery for you.

The main downside to trade credit insurance is its cost.

At the very low end you’re looking at an annual premium of around $5k, and for a business with revenue of around $1 million you can expect to pay at least $10k.

So it’s not cheap, but if we look at that electrician of ours who lost $150k on one job, no doubt they would have happily paid the $10k premium if they knew.

An electrical contractor client of ours had a company fail whilst owing him $150k. For a large electrical contractor that may be easier to swallow, but for a bloke with a handful of staff it was a massive hit.

Whether or not you should have trade credit insurance really depends on the types of clients you’re dealing with. If you deal with a lot of smaller clients, especially domestic clients, you’re not going to get any benefit from it.

As in many of these cases, once the administration and liquidation period is over, there is nothing left for the subcontractors and other unsecured creditors.

But if you do a lot of work for a small number of clients, leaving you with large exposures to single companies, then it’s certainly worth considering.

24 | Aussie Painting Contractor

Try putting it this way… What would happen if one of your top three clients failed and couldn’t pay you? If it wouldn’t bother you, then you might not need the cover. But if it meant having to put off some staff, or having to re-mortgage your house to pay the bills, then you probably do.

2. Your work results in the death of a third party One of the great things about being a tradesman or a builder is that you can stand back and admire your work. The huge number of tradies using Instagram shows this perfectly in action.

You want families to enjoy the house you’ve renovated, or the deck you’ve built, or the new lighting you’ve installed.

The last thing you want is for that work to cause harm to your client or their family, or perhaps one of their visitors to the home. But sadly, it can and does happen.

Given we’re talking about “nightmare” scenarios, let’s look at a very nasty one. Thankfully the builder involved was not a client of ours.

In 2008 there was a gathering of school mothers out on a deck. The house was a beautiful old Queenslander in the blue-chip Brisbane suburb of Ascot.

The structure failed, and multiple people suffered serious injuries, sadly one of the mothers lost her life.

In this case it was the builder who previously worked on the deck and a building inspector who were sued for millions of dollars by the family of the deceased as well as those who were injured.

PUBLIC LIABILITY INSURANCE If your work results in property damage or personal injury to a third party, and you are found to have been negligent, your public liability insurance will respond.

In the case of the deck, the building inspector most likely wouldn’t have been covered by public liability (see section below), but the builder would have been provided that there was negligence involved in their building work.

Public liability will generally form the core of any tradie or builder’s insurance portfolio.

PROFESSIONAL INDEMNITY INSURANCE In some cases your negligence wasn’t to do with your physical work, and instead was related to the design or professional advice you provided.

We don’t know the full story with how the deck collapse investigation panned out, but it could be that there was no negligence with the physical building work undertaken, and instead it was the design or the inspection of the deck that was the issue.

In this case, it could be that public liability will not respond, and instead it will be professional indemnity insurance that is required.

Your Trade Risk broker can go through this in more detail with you, but if you’re providing design or advice services, and especially if you’re charging a separate fee for this work, you’ll most likely need professional indemnity insurance.

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3. One of your team suffers a major injury at work Working on a construction site can be dangerous.

We all know that and accept that risk when working.

A nail through a finger might be joked about and posted on social media, but what if something really serious happened? What if one of your tradies suffered an injury that left them critically injured, or worse…?

Any good business owner is obviously going to feel terrible about the injury to their team member and the impact it’s going to have on their family. From a financial perspective, the best way you can manage this is through insurance.

If the worker is one of your employees they will be covered by your workers compensation insurance.

But we know in the building industry plenty of businesses use subcontractors, and this is where things can get a little messy…

Even if you have engaged a worker as a subcontractor, they could be a deemed worker and therefore must be covered under your workers compensation.

This is good from one perspective, as it means the person is covered. But that’s only any good if you have your workers compensation setup correctly. If you thought all your workers were subbies and not deemed workers, you could end up in trouble.

It could be worth speaking with your accountant or the relevant workers compensation provider for your state for further clarification.

4. A new home you are building is destroyed As a good builder you make sure your site is locked up and safe every night.

Now imagine turning up to the worksite one morning to see that your new build has been reduced to a pile of rubble.

If the house was just at frame stage you’re still going to be hurting financially, but it probably won’t ruin you. What if the house was virtually complete though? You could be down a few hundred grand.

But hold on… You have public liability insurance, which covers property damage, so all is okay!

Not so fast…

Whilst public liability insurance does indeed cover property damage, the policy will only respond in the event of negligence.

Public liability is designed to respond in the event that your negligence results in property damage or personal injury to another person. If there is no negligence, there is no claim.

If you ensured the site was safe and secure, and you did nothing wrong (or negligent) which contributed to the damage, your public liability insurance is not going to cover the claim.

CONTRACT WORKS INSURANCE What you need is contract works insurance.

Contract works insurance covers your projects whilst they are under construction. It can cover the structure itself, along with the materials located on site.

Most importantly, contract works does not rely on your negligence, which is where public liability insurance kicks in.

You suffer an injury that leaves you unable to work Picture this… You’ve done your apprenticeship, spent a few years working for someone else, then a few more years building your own business. You’re finally at the point where you’re making some good coin and the hard yards are paying off.

It could have been caused by a storm, arson or malicious damage. How it happened doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you’ve just lost everything.

You borrow some money for an investment property, then another big mortgage to build your dream home. You have decent amount of debt, but business is good and it’s all comfortably manageable.

NEW BUILD DESTROYED

Life is great.

Who is responsible financially? As the builder, in most cases it will be you. It’s not the homeowner’s responsibility until handover in most cases.

2020 September Issue | 27

Then one Friday afternoon you trip and fall from a second storey deck your team is building.

from the doctor confirming the injuries and the amount of time expected to be unable to work.

You end up in hospital with a broken femur and fractured vertebrae. The doctor reassures you that you’ll make a full recovery, but also that you’ll be off the tools for at least six months.

There are quite a few different options when it comes to waiting periods, benefit periods and benefit amounts, but your Trade Risk broker can run through these with you and provide a few different quotes.

Suddenly it feels like everything is about to fall apart…

How are you going to keep looking after your family and covering your mortgage repayments whilst you can’t do any work?

Don’t risk it all We know from ten years of experience that not every trade business owner is going to take out every type of trade insurance that can help them.

The last ten years of hard slog is about to ruined thanks to a Friday afternoon trip…

Some do though, especially those who truly appreciate the value they have created in their business and are willing to invest a very small percentage of their revenue to protect it.

But then you remember, your broker at Trade Risk gave you a quote for personal accident insurance a few months ago, and you went ahead with it!

PERSONAL ACCIDENT INSURANCE This type of cover goes by a few different names, but we’ll stick with personal accident insurance. Despite the name, it can also include cover for illness depending on the option selected.

Personal accident insurance can cover a large percentage (typically 85%) of your income for a period of time whilst you are unable to work due to injury and illness.

Continuing with the case study above, the tradie would simply have to provide a medical certificate

28 | Aussie Painting Contractor

We’re happy to talk to you about what you do and don’t need, and what types of insurance might give you the best “bang for buck” for your budget.

We don’t want you to spend all your money on insurance, but if something goes wrong in your business, we at least want to know that we gave you all the options and you knew what you could have insured yourself against.

If you’re an existing Trade Risk client and would like to discuss any of the above forms of trade insurance please contact your account manager, or for new clients please call us on 1800 808 800.

Worst nightmares for a trade business owner

50 YEARS A HOUSE PAINTER

This book contains 36 topics of industry related knowledge and information which will help you in the way you operate your business.Topics under headings of; Business Checklist, Staff, Marketing and Sourcing Customers, Professional Behavior, Successful Operation and Looking Ahead.Highly recommended by Jason Osborn, Dulux Business Development Executive as; â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;A very easy interesting read, that combines industry facts and great topics.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

www.mytools4business.com

RETIREMENT at Last Towards the end of last year I realised I didn’t want to continue running a business anymore, so I made the decision that the 1st May 2020 would be the official day to ‘pack up my tools’. I planned all my work to be completed the week prior to give me time to wind down the business before leaving on a nine week, worry free overseas holiday with my wife.

Imagine it yourself! Wouldn’t you just love it if the phone stopped ringing and you didn’t have to go out to do quotes multiple times a week; or not having to get up early, doing bookwork, or being stressed out not having enough work for your employees, or having cash flow problems because clients don’t pay on time?

Well! You can guess what happened! Covid 19.

So why am I emotional about ‘closing up shop’?

I guess it’s because I started up the business from absolute nothing. I didn’t know anyone here in Brisbane (as my wife and I had just moved to Qld from WA), Yellow Pages was the only major source of advertising and my work vehicle at the time was a Mazda 323 Hatchback (I remember carrying multiple steel trestles and scaffold planks to work sites on the roof rack). You can’t really start any lower than that in business! But I grew the business to become stable and profitable. There was not one person, company, Tax Department or supplier that ever had to wait to be paid. I met a lot of people that are now close friends, I put through ten apprentices in which a few of them have started their own businesses and I can admit, I only had three customers in all that time that were not happy with my work. So overall, I am very proud of my achievement and deserve the right to be a little bit ‘teary-eyed’.

This as you can imagine wrecked all our plans (as it did for millions of other people around the world), so six months of pain-staking planning (by my wife) had to be cancelled. As you know, Superannuation dropped and the share market took a tumble, so drawing on our nest-egg for an income had to be put on hold. We couldn’t travel anywhere in Australia because of the restrictions that occurred so I decided to hang on to the business for a little bit longer and sub-contract some work out.

It is now August and for the past month I have been putting my painting business to ‘sleep’ at last.

My website has been deleted, all advertising has stopped, I am transitioning to a new email account and I am no longer pricing jobs (unless they are small and easy for me to do).

At times it’s been quite emotional knowing that ‘James W Decorating’ and my tag-line ‘Not Just A Painter’ will no longer exist. With 51 years in the trade (in which 38 of them have been self-employed), you would think that it would be easy to just stop and not think about having a business anymore.

30 | Aussie Painting Contractor

So what stage are you up to in retirement?

No matter if you have forty years or five years until retirement, please take some advice from an old bloke like me and invest in your future. Transfer some of your earnings into a ‘Superannuation Fund’.

It’s not only ‘money in the bank’ but a great tax deduction too. You don’t have to put a lot away but every bit counts and you will find it soon builds up. If there is extra money in the business account (which is always great to see), instead of taking an amount out as ‘all’ income, put some of it away into your ‘Super’ fund. For instance: If you draw out $10,000, you will be taxed on that $10,000, which could work out to be $2,500 in tax (25% depending on your tax bracket).

If you kept $7,000 as income instead and put $3,000 into Super, you will only be taxed on the $7,000, which only works out at $1,750 tax. That is a saving of $750.

(Please note that these are my calculations only so speak to your accountant first for any financial advice). The reason to have your own ‘Super Fund’ also is that the Government Pension could change when you’re ready to retire and you may find that you cannot live on the allocated amount.

all your clients to inform them that they have taken over and to keep them in mind for their next project.

Contacts are priceless. Use it to your benefit.

If in the future you would like to sell your business, then there is one thing you should be doing right now.

Build a client database. Keep a record of every person you have dealt with. You need their contact details, how they found you, when the job was done, what you did, and if they have recommended you to anyone.

The more information you have, the better it is for when you are selling. You should know that there’s not much money made out of just selling stock and equipment. Your database is the most valuable business asset you can have. 90% of my work derives from past clients and referrals from those clients.

Think how much it’s worth to a painting business that is, ‘just starting up’, or for a larger business that ‘wants to expand’. A buyer of your business can then call

All it takes is planning and smart business procedures now to enjoy a well-earned retirement and to ‘live the dream’.

When you get closer to retirement (say five years out), my advice would be to work out how much your bills and living expenses will be per week (taking into consideration your home should be paid off). Factor in the discounts you will get because of your age on things like electricity, rates, car registration. Doing this will at least give you an idea on what you actually need per year and if your Superannuation will cover the income for that amount. If not, you can always add to it before you do finally retire.

You will be surprised though (as did my wife and I), you don’t need as much as you think you may need to have a great lifestyle.

A final note to remember: Relax and keep some balance in your life and most of all, don’t stress. If you stress, you don’t enjoy. If you don’t enjoy, you may as well work for someone else.

Life is too short, so don’t waste it.

Jim Baker

www.mytools4business.com

2020 September Issue | 31

LEAD KILLS

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www.lead.org.au 32 | Aussie Painting Contractor

Don’t Let Your Employees

Hold You Hostage Current employment shortages and challenges have some business owners feeling trapped and resorting to poor personnel practices. When it comes to employee situations, desperate times does not mean you should make desperate decisions. Employees who hold you hostage for more money rarely become solid long-term workers. The solution is not merely paying more in an attempt to “buy” loyalty. Rather the solution lies in having better personnel practices and a more long-term outlook on employment.

With that said, sound management practices have not changed and caving in to current labor shortages is not going to make bad management practices turn into good ones.

The first rule of managing people is to terminate attitude problems and train skill problems. Attitude problems might be described as the person “won’t” do it and has chosen not to participate. Skill problems are when the person “can’t” do it even if they wanted to.

When employee performance drops, ask this... “If I gave this person a million dollars could he or she do what I was asking.” For example, if you fell over dead, I could give you CPR and would be motivated to do so. But if that did not work, you might as well go to heaven or hell in one piece, as I do not have the skill required to cut you open and repair things.

Be careful of misdiagnosing a skill-oriented problem as an attitude problem. Many employees do not readily admit they can’t do something and what might surface is a face-saving remark. A classic example of this is an employee that has poor paperwork and handwriting skills. Rather than admit to their lack of education or ability, employees tend to say things like “I’m not a secretary or this paperwork is stupid.” Make sure you ask enough questions to determine what is truly the problem. Remember, that problems are a “cause” of a situation where

symptoms are a “result” of the cause. For example, employee turnover is not a cause but rather a symptom. Are you having turnover because you don’t pay adequately, have a bad supervisor or don’t respect your workers? You can’t cure a symptom but rather must focus on the true cause.

When dealing with workplace problems, focus on the future and solutions, not excuses. Avoid asking why questions. Why questions drive the discussion into the problem, not the solution. Asking an employee why he or she is late will yield a barrage of excuses, “the baby kept me up”, “my grandmother died” etc.

Instead focus on the future with an approach of “you are late. What can we do to ensure you are on time in the future?”

2020 September Issue | 33

Don’t be a barking dog with no teeth.

Many supervisors bark termination threats but rarely actually fire anyone for fear of not being able to replace them. Bark less and when you do bark, be prepared to put some teeth into what was said.

-------------------------------------------------------------------So, let’s go back to pay. You must pay a competitive wage to make sure you are attracting people. The bottom end of the pay market has increased dramatically. In my opinion, in most markets it takes at least $14 an hour to attract a person who can afford to travel back and forth to work and show up each day.

Paying lower than that tends to attract people whose living wages are so, they can’t afford to fix a flat tire and show up. Also, remember you are looking for people who do not work in air conditioning and go home dirty. Many people just do not see construction as a viable employment opportunity. In fact, NAHB conducted a survey of 18-24-year-olds and found only 3% saw construction as an employment opportunity.

Nothing on the US or Canadian employment horizon shows this attitude will change. In fact, as an employer you are fighting entrenched economic and social trends. Going against such trends is not easy. Economic success has always been tied to the allocation of scarce resources, today that resource is labor. To compete in today’s labor market, you must change your ways but changing your ways does not mean becoming a bad manager.

34 | Aussie Painting Contractor

Changes your way means you must:

• Work harder and be more creative as a recruiter. Look for employees as aggressively as you look for jobs.

• Make sure you are paying competitive entry wages.

Survey your local economic data, ask other businesses, advertise starting wages and see what it takes to get someone you need.

• Make sound financial decisions which might include raising your prices a couple of bucks an hour and investing that in personnel. Or consider slowing your growth.

Focus on procuring profitable work. I have found most contractors go bankrupt when they are busy, not because they don’t have any work. Job cost and understand what types of work to stay away from.

• Be a better place to work. Make sure your good employees appreciate you as the employer of choice.

Gain their feed back and buy in. Remember, loyalty is about relationships and job purpose, not dollars.

Don’t believe me? The next time your kid makes you a Father’s/Mothers’ Day present or you Mom fixes dinner, ask them how much you owe them? See how that insult flies.

Contractors are not material suppliers. They make money by producing things and producing things requires a workforce. I know employees can leave a bitter taste in our mouths because of all the problems they have caused throughout the years. However, they are our most important profit contributor and you can’t succeed without them.

Monroe Porter

is president of PROOF Management a firm that teaches seminars and runs networking groups for painting contractors.

www.proofman.com

Phone: 13 25 59 Fax: (07) 3877 2285 sales@quickally.com.au

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CHANGES TO

Personal Leave Entitlements In what can only be described as a sensible decision, the High Court last week overturned an earlier decision that ruled personal leave was to be 10 days a year for all permanent employees - part-time and full-time. This went against the widespread interpretation that personal leave accrued on the ordinary hours of work (like annual leave).

It is reassuring that the High Court has seen sense in this matter and restored balance and common sense to employment rulings.

The original ruling was by the full Federal Court in a case commonly referred to as the Mondelez ruling.

The ruling in this case determined that the National Employment Standards defined personal leave in terms of days, not hours. They then ruled that the meaning of a ‘day’ was the ordinary hours an employee worked. In this case, these employees were shift workers and their ordinary hours of work were 4 x 10 hour days.

This ruling means that personal leave entitlements will be accrued on the basis of the hours worked. This can be calculated as one-tenth of the employee’s ordinary hours of work over a two-week period or, where work patterns are irregular or inconsistent, 1/26 of the employee’s ordinary hours over a period of one year.

The reality of this decision was that a part-time employee who worked only one day a week, would still be entitled to 10 full days of personal leave a year. It also meant that an employee who worked 4 x 10 hour days instead of 5 x 7.6 hour days was entitled to 100 hours of personal leave a year as opposed to 76 hours.

The High Court in their decision last week, ruled that the earlier ruling by the full Federal Court was impractical and unbalanced. In the last 2 years, we’ve seen a number of decisions made in the Courts that have gone directly against industry practice and that have been unfairly balanced towards the employees.

38 | Aussie Painting Contractor

What does this mean to me as an employer of part-time employees?

For example, an employee who works 76 hours in a fortnight will accrue 7.6 hours of personal leave or 3.8 hours per week.

A part-time employee who works 20 hours in a week will accrue 2 hours of personal leave per week.

What does this mean to me as an employer of shift worker employees?

This ruling clarified that the yearly personal leave entitlement is 76 hours per year and this is to be proportioned according to the ordinary hours of work. For employees who are shift workers, personal leave will be calculated at 1/26 of the employee’s ordinary hours over a period of one year.

The reality of this is that an employee could accrue a higher amount of personal leave one week and a lesser amount the following week according to their rostered days, however the total yearly amount will amount to 76 hours or a pro-rata amount according to their ordinary hours of work.

How then does this work when they take personal leave? A shift worker would take their personal leave at the rate of their ordinary hours of work ie 10 hours.

Yes, this means that a shift workerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personal leave only equates to 7.6 days however they are also not rostered to work 5 days a work. It therefore, stands to reason that their days of work a year are less than a standard worker â&#x20AC;&#x201C; they work more hours on the days of work, equating to less actual days worked.

The Appeal was Mondelez Australia Pty Ltd v Automotive, Food, Metals, Engineering, Printing and Kindred Industries Union Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations v Automotive, Food, Metals, Engineering, Printing and Kindred Industries Union [2020] HCA 29 Date of Hearing: 7 July 2020 Date of Judgment: 13 August 2020 M160/2019 & M165/2019 http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/downloadPdf/2020/HCA/29 If you would like to discuss how this impacts your employment contracts, then please reach out to Vanessa from HR Maximised on 0418 190 106 or vanessa@hrmaximised.com.au

Cases For those interested, the original case was Mondelez v Automotive, Food, Metals, Engineering, Printing and Kindred Industries Union Known as the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) [2019] FCAFC 138. Click Here to check out the link

Vanessa Petch

www.facebook.com/hrmaximised/ c0418 190 106

Stopping Deviations From The Deal

GETS YOU PAID When a client comes to me with the story of how they got so far behind on payments, there is almost always a common root cause: they lost control of their client and the contract.

Here are the key areas where contractors lose control:

When you and your client enter into an agreement for you to carry out work and/or provide products you need to realise that that agreement is the DEAL. It’s not just a piece of paper. That is the basis of your relationship. It describes the obligations required of both you and your client. So it is your job to give that agreement full effect; give it life by sticking to those obligations.

This is critical. There will almost always be an agreed time for payment: Whether 30 days from invoice date, or the end of the month following the issue of the invoice, and so on.

In most payment disputes I find that the contractor has totally lost control of the contract. That is, they let their client deviate away from the agreed terms.

Pretty soon no one can be sure what the deal is as there are now a series of informal and un-agreed terms and understandings that have nothing to do with the actual contract.

This is where you either get into a ‘he said she said’ argument about those alternate agreements, or your client now retreats to the letter of the contract and tries to hold you to it when they have not kept to their obligations at all.

40 | Aussie Painting Contractor

NOT ENFORCING THE DUE DATE FOR PAYMENT

No matter what the time for payment, it is essential that you insist that the client pays on that date.

Your client no doubt is insisting that you meet your obligations to carry out the work. But they in turn need to meet the payment obligations. Too often you will subserviently keep working while letting your client decide when they pay you. This is not on! If they don’t pay on time they are in breach. You need to kick up a stink and make some noise.

If you don’t then within two months you’ve given your client to understand that you’ll put up with it, and they can decide when they pay and how much.

The client gets to feel like you are the weak party in the deal. This is a slippery slope as the client will see what else they can get away with.

Keep payments to time.

2020 September Issue | 41

UNDOCUMENTED CHANGES TO AGREED SCOPE & VARIATIONS Almost as important as when you get paid, is what you are getting paid for: That is, your scope of works.

This is also an area where loss of control can be fatal.

As a project progresses your client may ask for additional work. Or you may find that to carry out the work properly you need to do more than is in your contract. For example a preceding trade may have overlooked something that you have to do.

All this needs to be quoted, documented, and agreed.

Every time. Otherwise before you know it, the scope of works you have actually carried out hardly resembles what you agreed to do under the contract. Inevitably your client now only wants to pay you for the agreed scope, and ignore all the additional work. This happens because you allow it to happen. The contract will or should state what the process is to get additional work approved. If it doesn’t, then provide a quote and get it signed off.

By giving full effect to the variation process you will maintain control of what the scope of works is, and what your client has agreed to pay you for it.

Unbelievable as it may seem, many contractors reach the point where they do not know 1) what their full scope is, 2) what it’s worth, or 3) how much they are owed. I once spent 4 days going through 3 boxes of paper just trying to establish those three simple things.

The contractor had totally lost control of the job. He went on to lose over $600 000 on that one project.

work is delayed then you MUST advise the client of the cause and the likely effect on your completion date. Even if the contract does not require this, it is good practice and will stand you on solid ground if there is a fight over delay damages; the costs borne by either party due to delays.

Contactors lose control over their ability to accurately show the days they were delayed. Often there are no records at all. This leaves the door open for the client to allege delays and deduct money for them. If the contract has provisions in it regarding delays, and you don’t give them any effect then you lose control over any claim you may have in relation to those delays, and you lose control over your client’s attempt to claim against you for the costs of those delays.

If there are liquidated damages then you may be in real trouble here. So don’t let it happen. Keep accurate records and notify you client when delays occur.

So the three action items here are: • DO NOT ALLOW DEVIATIONS FROM THE DATE FOR PAYMENT • DO NOT ALLOW DEVIATIONS FROM THE AGREED SCOPE UNLESS THEY ARE RECORDED • RECORD ALL DELAYS AND FORWARD TO YOUR CLIENT Observing these three simple rules will put you in control of the project, and from that you should get paid on time and in full. It also has the advantage of letting your client know that you are not a weak minor party. You are the other party to the contract.

You’ll do your bit, but you’ll make sure they do theirs! © Contractors Debt Recovery 2011

So document all changes in scope and know what they’re worth.

UNDOCUMENTED EXTENSIONS OF TIME AND DELAYS The biggest problem I see here is a failure to record the delays as and when they occur; then a further failure to advise the client in a timely fashion. If the

Anthony Igra

Contractors Debt Recovery

2020 September Issue | 43

We need super, but we're taxing it the wrong way round Many economists think that earnings in super funds should be taxed at a relatively low rate, compared to labour earnings and other types of earnings such as interest and dividends.

This is reflected in tax policy around the world.

Among members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, private pension plans (what we call super) have among the lowest tax rates of any savings instrument.

The Australian tax treatment of super aligns with this trend. But the Australian system is much more generous than other countries and very expensive.

In the past financial year the tax concessions on super fund earnings cost the government an estimated A$17.8 billion. The tax concession on employer super contributions cost $19.6 billion.

Do the benefits of these generous tax concessions justify their costs?

Our recent report on savings taxes suggests that they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, in large measure because they are poorly aimed at their intended objectives.

In order to understand just how poorly they are aimed, it is necessary to identify the arguments typically used to justify their existence.

Justification 1. The impact of tax compounds over time The first (and by far most convincing) justification is that superannuation is typically held for a long period of time. Since income from superannuation is taxed annually, the impact of the tax compounds over time, similar to compound interest.

Lower tax rates can offset the increase in effective tax rates over time.

44 | Aussie Painting Contractor

But in practice they are applied poorly because they apply equally, irrespective of whether the asset is held for a short or a long time.

Read more: Progressive in theory, regressive in practice: thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how we tax income from savings Ideally the concession would be the greatest for workers at the start of their careers.

They are the ones who hold super for the longest time, but the system actually awards the highest concessions to the high earners, who tend to be the oldest and closest to retirement.

Justification 2. Super tax concessions encourage saving A second rationale for superannuation tax concessions is that they help ensure people save enough money for retirement.

This argument is less convincing, because there is relatively strong evidence suggesting that it is the compulsory nature of superannuation, rather than how it is taxed, that drives retirement savings.

In other words, if people are not saving enough for retirement, superannuation concessions are the wrong tool â&#x20AC;&#x201C; increasing the compulsory percentage would be better.

Moreover, if increasing retirement savings is a goal of tax policy, it would be best achieved by charging the least to the people most likely to respond to tax rates.

Existing research suggests that low income people are among those most likely to respond to tax concessions.

Yet at the moment the concessions are directed to high earners.

Justification 3. Super concessions take weight off the pension

Alternatively, it could direct concessions toward those Australians most likely to receive an age pension.

A third argument is that super tax concessions reduce dependence on the age pension.

At the moment the biggest concessions are directed to the Australians wealthy enough to be unlikely to receive the pension.

But super tax concessions only improve the government’s financial position if savings on the age pension are greater than the cost of the concessions.

So how should we tax super?

In the long-run there’s a case for taxing the earnings from all types of savings at the same rate.

Short-run, super tax could be reformed by making all superannuation contributions out of posttax income (potentially with an upfront subsidy, but a smaller one than currently exists) taxing earnings in the retirement phase in addition to the pre-retirement phase and using the resulting revenue to reduce the tax rate on all super earnings taxing super earnings at a lower annual rate for younger Australians to account for the fact that they hold super assets for a longer Removing “catch-up provisions” that allow older Australians to put in more at lower tax rates and lowering the annual concessional contributions cap The savings made could help fund a reduction in personal income tax rates, greater government support payments, or a combination of both.

Superannuation has only a modest impact on the likelihood a retiree will claim the pension. Adam Nieścioruk/Unsplash.

It is a far from decided question.

There is a good deal of evidence suggesting that the amount placed in super has only a modest impact on the likelihood that the superannuant will claim a pension, and a relatively modest impact on the amount claimed.

Increased savings of almost any form will reduce dependence on the age pension to some extent because most savings, other than owner-occupied housing, are counted in the means test.

The government’s retirement income review has examined some of these questions. It was delivered to the treasurer late last month.

Peter Varela

Research Fellow, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Kristen Sobeck

Senior Research Officer, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Robert Breunig

Professor of Economics and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

If the government wanted a stronger effect it could tighten the means test.

2020 September Issue | 45

The Industry Idiots

46 | Aussie Painting Contractor

IMPORTANT

Contacts

Aussie Painters Network aussiepaintersnetwork.com.au

Ph. 0430 399 800

National Institute for Painting and Decorating painters.edu.au

Ph. 1300 319 790

Australian Tax Office ato.gov.au

Ph. 13 72 26 / Ph. 13 28 65

Award Rates fairwork.gov.au

Ph. 13 13 94

Fair Work Building & Construction fwbc.gov.au

Ph. 1800 003 338

Mates In Construction matesinconstruction.com.au

Ph. 1300 642 111

Workplace Health and Safety Contacts Comcare WorkSafe ACT Workplace Health and Safety QLD Victorian WorkCover Authority WorkCover NSW SafeWork SA WorkSafe WA NT WorkSafe WorkSafe Tasmania

comcare.gov.au worksafe.act.gov.au worksafe.qld.gov.au vwa.vic.gov.au workcover.nsw.gov.au safework.sa.gov.au commerce.wa.gov.au/WorkSafe/ worksafe.nt.gov.au worksafe.tas.gov.au

1300 366 979 02 6207 3000 1300 362 128 1800 136 089 13 10 50 1300 365 255 1300 307 877 1800 019 115 1300 366 322

actcancer.org cancercouncil.com.au cancercouncilnt.com.au cancerqld.org.au cancersa.org.au cancervic.org.au cancerwa.asn.au

(02) 6257 9999 (02) 9334 1900 (08) 8927 4888 (07) 3634 5100 (08) 8291 4111 (03) 9635 5000 (08) 9212 4333

Cancer Council Australia ACT NSW NT QLD SA VIC WA

2020 September Issue | 47

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