I couldn’t believe it …
I go to pay my normal ASIC bill – we should be not-for-profit, but after Premier Jim Bacon tried to sue me all those years ago – I set up a ‘business’ (err… well that’s what I remember… it was a while ago, 14 years in Oct).
Thus I’ve regularly paid ASIC bills which come a couple of times a year – and not insubstantial (around $250) … for many years.
I attempted to again this year … trooping in to the ASIC office in the Telstra building in Hobart … to be confronted, not by a nice staff member, but by two telephones. I try both … and each time there is a recorded voice saying … ‘Unfortunately our operators are …’ you get the drift.
So, frustrated, I leave, write a cheque for the $250 and attach a note explaining why the bill is late and zap it off to the Locked Bag number in Gippsland …
Then, bugger me, out of the blue comes this bill (in the photo).
For $76.
I can understand ASIC’s need to bill huge corporations for late payment and to make it substantial … but $76 for a tiny little ‘business’ for which the Ed works (my accountant estimates $3 an hour).
Gentle readers, should I pay it?
*Lindsay Tuffin has been a journo for nearly five decades …
• Luigi Brown in Comments: It’s bills like this, and everything else levied on us by governments, that are the real drain on a business. The major imposts on any small business are government taxes – be they council rates, water taxes, land tax, payroll tax, GST, income tax. There is no end to it. This is what red tape really is – not headworks charges on new property development – and this is what is suppressing and dragging on small business generally. But what choice do you have? None. Pay up or else.
• Pete Godfrey in Comments: I would say NO. You should not pay it. Why don’t you just turn yourself into a pirate internet site. Tell them you are based outside the territorial limits on a boat. It worked for radio stations in England for a while. One question Linz, what do you get for your $76? Maybe you need to become a co-op. Where the site is not actually owned by anyone at all. Tell them to go jump Linz.
• Ted Mead in Comments: The problem Linx is – if your going to run a business then it’s gotta be big – Corporation like. Particularly relevant to the resource extraction overlords. Then you can tap into all the subsidies and exclusions like no payroll tax, royalties, fuel subsidies, endless tax rebates and perennial government grants. It’s a piece of cake when your one of the big players, you get it all in return for a pittance donated back to an election campaign. Australia is well founded on this ethos – If you don’t play the game you lose big time! …
