OA, what extra paperwork would you have to do that wouldn't be done already? Surely a builder and subi would already record all their income and expenses wouldn't they?
Gools
It isn't just the paperwork. What they want to do is say that if you are a contractor doing more than 80% of your entire workload for one person/company, then you are no longer a contractor and are an employee of that person/company, which means that they have to pay your super, give you employee benefits etc. In addition, they want to stop contractors from subcontracting works out to other contractors, which means that only companies with the ability to do everything in a contract from top to bottom will be able to take on contracts.
The bottom line is that the government doesn't like the current mishmash of contracts/subcontracts/subsubcontracts that takes place within the industry - it wants large entities that are in effect one stop shops to do the work for clients, with all of the people doing the work being employees of those entities.
It really begs the question - why? Why "fix" what is not broken? What is wrong with having small businesses out there (1 man crews) where the boss is the worker on the tools, operating as a business and getting business entitlements? The system that we have is more efficient, because the guy on the tools is more likely to know what is involved in the job and price it properly in the first place, and it also means that a single person is taking on multiple roles, maximising their productivity.
Anyone who has worked for a large building company would know this - the labourers/skilled workers rock up, and if the foreman isn't there, they bludge around and have a smoke. When they're finished a certain task and there isn't anyone around to give them the next task/materials, they again have a bludge and wait around, while a foreman who isn't the owner really doesn't care and does a horrible job of coordinating labour/materials.
Compare that to the 1-3 man outfits where the guy on the tools is the one with the chequebook, knows exactly what materials are there, what work needs to be done, how to do it, and works flat out because it's his time and his money being wasted.
So yes, be cautious of this "oh, it's just some paperwork" stuff. That's phase one. Then it's "well, we have analysed the data, and xyz person is actually your employee because he does 81% of your work - you need to pay his super". Then it's "We have again analysed your data, and we have decided that any comany with more than 4 employees must have xyz ridiculous provisions included for xyz ridiculous reason" on and on until everyone says "bugger it" and leaves the industry. Proof of this kind of idiocy is all over the place - every worked for a big company where you MUST wear a hard hat on all sites? Do you know how ridiculous it looks when you're wearing a hard hat on a flat piece of land with no buildings on it doing surveying or checking the water meter? And if you don't because you have common sense, you get fired "because that's the rules"?
I've seen it. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or run the foreman over for being a twit