PMV 300 Sponsor self employed

I can not remember the wording on the debt but from memory you answer you don't have a debt as a payment plan is then considered more a "loan" from the government - similar to student loans. Just look it up its mentioned some place (or was) and is pretty clear. Some of the other members are pretty good on government stuff including taxation.

Just curious has any taxes been taken out of your pay in other countries or Australia?

Sorry but very sure you need to list all your travels, I recall I needed to and I also had a bunch of countries. The dates I could not exactly work out I made them the 1st of the month (even this was a guess at times) and the year, I then uploaded a cover letter to the Case Officer and explained that I did not have exact recollection are evidence of the visits and the entries on the 1st of each month listed were my best guess.

I have since heard you can get your travel history from immigration, but I expect this only gives your exit and entry dates from Australia. I lived in Africa for around 8 years so that would not have helped me much. Being in aviation many of my trips were not recorded in the African countries when it was work related - you simple walk thru the crew gate and show that you have a passport and airport security card as you walk by.

If you have in total stayed in a country for more than 12 months in the last year, you need to list that and will require a police clearance from that country (pretty sure all sponsors need a PC now). At the time of our application I did not list Botswana as a country I lived in for more than 12 months in the last 10 years, I did live there for around 8 years but only 10 months of it was in the last 10 years. Probably not the right thing to do, but trying to get a police clearance from there lead to the creative way of interpretation requirement.

When we did the application sponsors of an applicant with children require police clearances, so I was required to. But I am sure that now all sponsors need them - part of a clamp down on Domestic Violence.

If you have paid your tax, you probably wont have a debt (you might get a fine for late lodgement but they often waive that if you are proactive on fixing the error).

Working under ABN's is very hot at the moment, particularly if through Labour Hire Firms. If your using the ABN then it appears you are paid by an Australian company and paid as an Independent Contractor. If you look up the "Independent Contractor or Employee" decision tool on the ATO web site, there is a very great chance you will find you are an Employee for tax and supa purposes. The penalties for the companies for this can be pretty steep around $50k per offence. It also leads to Payroll Tax evasion. Luckily for you there is no penalty so to speak but the ATO can cancel your ABN.

The short quick fix for this is to open a company and trade under a ACN not a ABN. A bit more to it than that, but have a chat to your accountant about it.

A extract from a email I got this week.

your industry is one where labour hire providers appear to be engaging in sham contracting in order to avoid their obligations, such as their payroll tax requirements, to workers. Through its own investigations, the Government has become aware of many workplaces like yours.

I would get the child a local passport and apply for Citizenship By Descent asap, it is not expensive and can be very fast.

I don't know on payment plans for individuals but I expect it is the same as for companies.

I often used my tax payments to grow my company (it worked out as a tax free loan) we certainly never had a 10% figure to start, They would say ok you owe $100,000 we want $20,000 a month. We would say no can not afford that we will go broke. Then it was always what can you afford and we would reply maybe $10,000 but to be safe $8,000. They would generally agree at this point and ask the date of first payment - we would always make it a date the following month around 6 weeks after the date we are currently on.

They insist you make all tax payments during this time on time and don't default.

We probably did this 7 or 8 times and never once did we get a penalty or interest on the owed amount, we did get a nasty person on a few occasions but simply had an emergency to deal with and needed to call back - you get a new person and start your negotiations again.