12/11/2024
What is the difference between a contractor and an employee (under a sham contractor arrangement)? Here what the ATO says is the difference. [link in the comments]
Just because you are a sole trader working under an ABN doesn't mean you are a contractor.
The most common mistakes employers make are setting hours of work, not allowing contractors to subcontract work if they become too busy with more profitable work, and limiting the amount of other contracts you can take on claiming it is a "conflict of interest".
It can't be a conflict of interest if they employ you as a contractor, as one of the ATOs definitions is: "an independent contractor provides services to a business and performs work to further their own business."
We talk to a lot of job seekers who say they have worked under an ABN before, but have never been able to do what we say in our brochure.
We get asked "but aren't you worried about people joining your Marketing Co-op and using it to build their own business?".
Hell no! That's what we want them to do.
We are more of a side gig for them, to earn extra cash doing cheap, quick and easy jobs for pensioners and carers in their local community. That's how we get work done so cheaply at Local Home and Garden Repairs.
We connect people who need help with people in their local community who want help, so all the full-service businesses have to do is turn up and do the job without all the extra time and costs to get the jobs. We take care of that for them.
As Richard Branson says - train people so they can leave, but treat them well enough so they don't have to.