THE Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) has reiterated its call for compensation for accountants’ lost time and productivity due to the failure of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) technology.

“We are constantly being reassured by the ATO that it will fix its system going forward and practitioners can expect more robust ATO interactions from the deployment of better technology in 2017.  These reassurances are now falling on deaf ears of our members when the portal goes down for two days this week,” said IPA chief executive officer, Andrew Conway.

“In 2015, the ATO acknowledged that its use of technology and administrative changes combined with the existing ATO portal issues have added to the frustrations and lost productivity for many small tax practitioners.

"The portal downtime this week coincides with the release of the Inspector General of Taxation (IGT) report (Review into the Taxpayers’ Charter and Taxpayer Protections) which highlight deficiencies in the Compensation for Detriment Causes by Defective Administration (CDDA) scheme.  The report confirms that the CCDA scheme does not adequately address productivity loss, opportunity costs (particularly for tax practitioners) or psychological injury.  It further states that the CCDA scheme does not adequately compensate for losses arising from major ATO changes in process or IT.

“Most tax agent practitioners are small businesses themselves working hard to service the interests of their clients.

“Our members have highlighted to us on many occasions that they have suffered productivity loss, missed deadlines, and incurred irrecoverable costs as well as damage to their reputations and relationships with their clients.

“We have and continue to provide the ATO with real examples of these practical issues.

“Our member feedback has consistently stated that the ATO portal which is an essential tool of trade for practitioners and agents has been a constant point of frustration due to the portal’s instability and unreliability. 

“We acknowledge the ATO is acutely aware of these issues and our obligation is to voice the concerns on behalf of our members.

“We will continue to work with the ATO to ensure the system is fixed for all concerned,” said Mr Conway.

publicaccountants.org.au

FOR THE SECOND year,TechCollect, an industry-funded electronic waste recycling service, is calling for Australian businesses to play their part in building a sustainable future by recycling unwanted e-waste on December 8.

Research from Planet Ark reveals the most commonly recycled material in the workplace is paper with almost three quarters (72 per cent) of employees recycling this regularly, but when it comes to e-waste, only 36 per cent of employees are recycling computers and accessories.

With 82 percent of employees wanting to see more e-waste recycling in their workplaces, TechCollect’s ‘Waste Not, Want Not’ Day gives businesses a reminder to open up the storage room and hand over old office supplies for responsible recycling.

To get involved on Waste Not, Want Not Day, businesses can follow these three easy steps:

1. Gather all unwanted and unused e-waste from around the workplace
2. Call1300 229 837 to see if you qualify for a free pickup
3. If you don’t qualify for a free pickup, find your nearest free drop-off point at http://techcollect.com.au/our-locations/

“It’s crucial for recycling to be viewed as a civic duty for all of us, but it’s also important for businesses to try and take some of the weight off consumers’ shoulders, as it often falls unfairly on individuals to do the right thing,” Carmel Dollisson, CEO of TechCollect said.

“There is currently a lot more the corporate sector can do to take responsibility for the e-waste it generates, and to make a positive impact on the environment and wider community.

"Instead of businesses letting e-waste accumulate, we’re encouraging them to make a pledge to support ‘Waste Not, Want Not’ Day on December 8 by recycling their e-waste at their nearest TechCollect drop off site or calling us direct if they have a substantial amount that we may be able to collect.”

TechCollect is an industry-funded, not-for-profit recycling service for computers, computer accessories and TVs. It was established in response to the government’s National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme which set out an obligation for importers and manufacturers to take responsibility for the safe disposal of e-waste.

As technology consumption continues to rise, it’s critical that businesses become more active participants in sustainability and promote awareness of responsible recycling throughout the year.

The festive season is the perfect time for employers and employees to clear offices of clutter ahead of the New Year and, at the same time, take shared responsibility for their e-waste. Dollisson says education is vital, not just for better workplace practice but for employees at home.

“Precious metals exist in e-waste and if we don’t recycle products those metals are lost to landfill,” Dollisson says. “Recycling means that these valuables can be recovered and put back into the manufacturing process.

“If we want Australia to build a more effective and adaptable system, an environment in which responsibilities are more evenly shared between consumers and business needs to be created. Getting companies to commit to ‘Waste Not, Want Not’ Day is a fantastic way to build a habit that can last throughout the year.”

To find out more information about TechCollect or to find a designated drop-off site closest to you, visit: http://www.techcollect.com.au/ 

BRISBANE has taken out fourth spot in a prestigious global ranking of cities vying for foreign direct investment, and placed in the top 10 worldwide for human capital and lifestyle.

Queensland’s capital moved up one spot to place fourth out of 53 submitting cities in the Foreign Direct Investment Strategy category of the Global Cities of the Future report released every two years by fDi Intelligence – a division of the London-based Financial Times.

This year Brisbane also placed highly in the publication’s overall rankings of 131 cities worldwide, taking out 10^th position for human capital and lifestyle – just one spot behind London.

“Placing fourth for foreign direct investment strategy demonstrates that Brisbane is successfully showing the world that our city is economically resilient, supports foreign investors across a range of industry sectors, and is backed by a robust and connected business and government environment,” Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said.

“To be ranked within the top 10 globally for human capital and lifestyle is testament to the outstanding education, research, business, employment and lifestyle opportunities that continue to attract and retain talented and skilled people in our great city.”

The publication also named Brisbane winner of two inaugural awards for strategy, driven by the city’s economic development board, Brisbane Marketing.

Brisbane’s 2022 New World City Action Plan was recognised with the Strategic Vision Award, while the city’s successful tourism infrastructure and hotel investment strategy saw it win the Tourism Development Award.

“The Brisbane 2022 New World City Action Plan has put out city firmly on the path toward greater economic growth and prosperity by focusing on seven key economic priorities and eight promising growth sectors,” Cr Quirk said.

“Brisbane’s hotel investment and tourist attraction strategy focuses on building the tourism and visitation economy by attracting foreign direct investment into infrastructure such as cruise ship terminals, major tourist attractions, and four and five-star hotels.

“More than $10 billion worth of major project and infrastructure work in the pipeline will support greater numbers of tourists who are choosing our progressive and multicultural city for the wealth of unique experiences on offer.

“The latest fDi Intelligence rankings are another indicator that Brisbane is becoming a more globally competitive city which will continue to attract and benefit from foreign direct investment.” 

www.brisbanemarketing.com.au

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TODAY’S announcement that Indian miner Adani’s $22 billion Carmichael coal, railway and port project will be based in Townsville and begin construction from early 2017 is overwhelmingly positive news for regional Queensland, the state and the nation.
 
“After spending years obtaining the appropriate approvals, mining leases, demonstrating its commitment to environmental management and fighting continuous and often mischievous legal challenges, today’s strong progress on Adani’s Carmichael coal project is warmly welcomed by Australia’s resource industry,” says AMMA chief executive Steve Knott.
 
“This project is expected to inject 500 new jobs into regional Queensland in its first phase, create up to 10,000 direct and indirect jobs throughout its construction period, and employ an ongoing workforce of 4,500 during its long-term production phase.
 
“New multi-billion dollar mining projects are an extreme rarity in the challenging economic conditions currently facing resource operators globally. In recent years more than $160bn worth of potential resources projects have been dropped from consideration in Australia, almost half of which was flagged for Queensland.
 
“Adani’s Carmichael project will be much more than a short-term boost for Queensland’s economy. With an operating life of up to 90 years, it will create opportunities for small business and provide taxation and royalties that will fund schools, hospitals and other community infrastructure for almost a century.”
 
AMMA notes that despite obtaining almost all approvals needed to begin construction, and complying with more 200 environmental conditions, efforts are still underway by minority activist and community groups to derail the project through continuous court challenges, appeals and protests.
 
Mr Knott says Australia can learn from the excessive and unnecessary costs and delays in getting the Carmichael project to its pre-construction phase, in seeking to improve our processes for assessing and approving future job-creating developments.
 
“It is not missed that as most of the country celebrates one of very few new major resource projects in Australia coming closer to fruition, there are ongoing strategies by vocal minority activist groups to frustrate and stall the project through Australia’s courts,” he says.
 
“While nobody should be denied their right to legally and responsibly object to a development on legitimate grounds, the continuous legal activism known as ‘lawfare’ seen in the Adani case is counter-productive to our nation securing future projects and the community benefits they bring.
 
“The irony of the anti-coal brigade is that Australia supplying developing nations such as Indian with their coal energy needs is not only good for our economy and jobs, but ultimately better for global CO2 emissions  due to the cleaner burning properties of Australia’s high quality thermal coal.
 
“In doing so, Australia is also strengthening our relationship with one of our most important emerging international trade partners, and doing our part in helping bring billions of people out of poverty.”

www.amma.org.au

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THE Trade Sub-Committee of the Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (JSCFADT) has commenced an inquiry into Australia’s trade and investment relationship with its largest trading partner in Europe - the United Kingdom.

‘Following the United Kingdom’s referendum decision to leave the European Union, it is timely to conduct an inquiry into Australia’s trade relations with the UK,’ the Chair of the Trade Sub-Committee, Senator Bridget McKenzie said.

‘With two-way trade in goods and services worth more than $23 billion, the UK has long been a significant trade and investment partner for Australia. The Sub-Committee will investigate the opportunities to expand these trade and investment links, and the merits of a possible bilateral free trade agreement with the UK, especially as both countries navigate a new trading path with each other.’

‘This inquiry will include an examination of the possible implications for Australia’s trade and investment relationships with the UK and the EU, depending on how and when the UK negotiates its exit from the EU.’

The inquiry will also look at the significant UK investment in Australia and Australian investment in the UK. According to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, the Hon Steven Ciobo MP, who referred the inquiry to the JSCFADT, UK businesses have direct investments worth $76 billion in Australia, rising to nearly $500 billion when portfolio and other investments are included. Australia had direct investments of $81 billion in the UK and $353 billion overall in 2015.

Tourism also remains another important export for Australia with nearly 700,000 British visitors coming to Australia last year, who collectively spent almost $4 billion in Australia. In 2015-16, the UK Office for National Statistics reported more than 600,000 Australians visited the UK.

The terms of reference for the Committee’s inquiry are as follows:

The Committee shall examine Australia’s trade and investment relationship with the United Kingdom (UK). The Committee shall have particular regard to:

• the nature of Australia’s current trade and investment relationship with the UK;
• possible implications for Australia’s trade and investment relationships with the UK and the European Union consequent to the UK’s exit from the European Union;
• barriers and impediments to trade and investment with the UK;
• opportunities to expand trade and investment links;
• the merits and risks of a possible bilateral free trade agreement with the UK, and potential features of such an agreement;
• the role of Australian governments (State, Territory and Federal) in identifying trade and investment opportunities in the UK, and assisting Australian exporters to access these opportunities; and
• any other related matters.

The Trade Sub-Committee invites submissions from anyone with an interest in the issues raised by these terms of reference.  Submissions addressing the terms of reference should be lodged by 17 February 2017.  Further details about the about the inquiry, including how to contribute, can be obtained from the Committee’s website or by contacting the Committee Secretariat.

Interested members of the public may wish to track the committee via the website. Click on the blue ‘Track Committee’ button in the bottom right hand corner and use the forms to login to My Parliament or to register for a My Parliament account.

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THE House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities has today presented its report, Harnessing Value, Delivering Infrastructure, on the role of transport connectivity in stimulating development and economic activity in urban areas and regional Australia.

The Committee has recommended development of value capture mechanisms as a means of funding new transport infrastructure and the development of high speed rail to facilitate new patterns of settlement in Australia.

Committee Chair Mr John Alexander MP says the effective planning and development of transport infrastructure in our major cities and regions would optimise not just our potential for growth but also quality of life and cost of housing.

“We should give effect to urban renewal and densification while rebalancing the pattern of settlement through strategic decentralisation,” Mr Alexander says. “The key to this is high speed rail funded by value capture.”

The Committee has also recommended:

• developing a framework for the specification and evaluation of proposals for the development of a High Speed Rail Network in Eastern Australia
• investigating options for private funding of High Speed Rail through value capture
• the monitoring and investigation of other technological innovations for transport connectivity
• recognising the potential contribution towards the costs of new transport infrastructure of value capture
• developing a system for coordinating the planning and funding of major infrastructure projects across all levels of government
• coordinated procurement of vehicles and rolling stock for transport infrastructure
• establishing value capture mechanisms for individual transport infrastructure projects as a condition of federal funding
• developing a toolkit of value capture mechanisms that can be applied by all levels of government
• continued roll-out of City Deal-type agreements with the various state, territory and local governments
• developing a consistent and coordinated approach to the application of value-capture to major infrastructure projects, with the Australian Government acting as the single-point for the collection of value capture revenues.

A copy of the report can be obtained from the Committee’s website or from the secretariat on (02) 6277 2352.

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THE The Queensland Resources Council claims the "left-wing think tank" The Australia Institute (TAI) has been "caught out attempting to put a wrecking ball through Queensland’s economy and jobs with dodgy digits".

According to the QRC, the TAI report, ‘Never Gonna Dig You Up’, claimed the Queensland economy ‘would not be affected at all in the short term and barely affected’ in the medium to long term if coal mining ended.

QRC chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the importance of the coal industry to Queensland’s economy had never been more critical to regional communities "and for TAI to produce a report about coal with a Western Australian gold mine on the front cover reflects how much they know about the industry".

The report claimed there would only be 1,400 net job losses across the country from ending coal mining in Queensland and NSW and that Australia would experience an overall reduction in GDP of 0.6 percent.

However, according to QRC, a review of TAI’s report by highly credentialed Cadence Economics found that the ‘research’ was based on unfounded assumptions and discounted critical economic impacts.

Key findings of the Cadence Economics analysis of the TAI report included:

• TAI’s entire paper is based on an unexplained and unrealistic assumptions regarding employment: TAI assumes the job losses caused by ending coal mining would be picked up by ‘other sectors,’ including having workers move from the coal producing regions of Queensland and NSW to Victoria and Western Australia. In other words, they assume that real jobs will be replaced by phantom ones. 

• TAI’s report significantly underestimates that the net number of coal jobs that would be lost from ending the coal industry: TAI claims net job losses would only be around 1,400. However, using the same employment modelling parameters as the Commonwealth Treasury, Cadence Economics estimates jobs lost would be between 20,000-40,000 across the nation. Even at the lower end that’s a TAI miscalculation of 18,600 jobs or 95 percent. 

• Impact on Queensland economy would be ‘catastrophic’: TAI’s own research glosses over the economic impact to Queensland which Cadence Economics describes as ‘catastrophic.’ As well as the significant job losses, ending the coal mining industry in Queensland would result in $3.8 billion in lost mining royalties and a staggering $72 billion total loss to the state’s economy. 

• Massive impact on the Mackay and Fitzroy regions: The TAI report virtually dismisses the disastrous impact that ending coal mining would have on the Mackay and Fitzroy regions. Using TAI’s own numbers, Cadence Economics estimates a cumulative economic loss for these regions of $28.3 billion. 

“These quasi-economic reports will only denigrate the natural resource sector’s ability to provide jobs in communities and royalties that pay for nurses, police and teachers,” Mr Macfarlane said.

“The authors of TAI report appear to have no understanding of economics and the figures put forward seem to be borne out of the centre for creative accountants. This report is yet another example of anti-coal activists holding back the economic prosperity of Queensland.”

www.qrc.org.au

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GLOBAL political unrest and change may place further strain on Australia’s economic position, according to the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA).

“Australia faces a tremendous economic challenge as we position ourselves in an increasingly competitive region,” said IPA chief executive officer, Andrew Conway speaking at the launch of the IPA Deakin SME Research Centre recently.

“The emergence of the Trump government in America comes with uncertainty over current and future free trade agreements which may impact on our international relationships with other countries.

“And I am sure that discussions around Brexit will shortly shift to ‘Brentry’; as in, which markets the UK will seek to enter.

“Australia is uniquely placed to influence trade and investment opportunities in new markets.

“Critical to this will be whether small business has the confidence to employ and to explore. Employing more people and exploring new markets will help ensure small business owners, their families and our communities are in a position to seize the growth potential.

“However, this cannot happen with a blind expectation that government has the capacity to solve these problems and lay these policy foundations in isolation. 

“Our stagnating productivity growth as a nation threatens our quality of life. One of the critical levers that government and industry must acknowledge and trigger is to unleash productive capabilities of small business.

“Our job is to think big and back that up with reasoned and sound evidence and that is the role of our SME research centre

“However, research is not an end in itself; it is an enabler. Research is about building a seminal body of evidence to support a proposition. Our proposition is how do we turn Australia into the best place in the world to start, run and grow a small business?

“Our vision for the research centre is that it becomes the credible voice for small business. That policy makers continue to come to us first for advice as a sounding board and we get it right,” said Mr Conway.

About the Institute of Public Accountants

The IPA, formed in 1923, is one of Australia’s three legally recognised professional accounting bodies.  In late 2014, the IPA acquired the Institute of Financial Accountants in the UK and formed the IPA Group, with more than with more than 35,000 members and students in over 80 countries.  The IPA Group is the largest SME focused accountancy organisation in the world. The IPA is a member of the International Federation of Accountants, the Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board and the Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants.  The IPA was recognised in 2012 as Australia’s most innovative accounting organisation and listed in the top 20 in the 2012 BRW Most Innovative Companies List.  

publicaccountants.org.au

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