Taxman targets labor hire firms

Labor hire companies, placement agencies and computer consultancies are in the taxman’s sights. And Ingeus, the job placement agency owned by entrepreneur Therese Rein, is one of the companies that will be forced to hand over records as part of an investigation into the consulting industry.

Tax officials will match company records with tax returns to make sure that consultants and contractors who receive personal services income are paying tax including GST, fringe benefits tax, income tax and excise.

The tax office will look at the income paid by the labor hire firms with the income declared on the contractor’s tax returns to pinpoint any undeclared income.

The tax office says the number of records is estimated to be about 100,000. The information requested from the labor hire firms and computer consultancies includes the amounts paid for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 financial years. The data is expected to be of high quality, the tax office says, because pilot programs shows these companies keep good records.

Companies to supply records:

• Adecco
• Alphawest
• BDS Recruit
• Candle Australia
• Entity Solutions
• Greythorn,
• Hays Specialist Recruitment
• Hudson Global resources
• Ingeus
• Link Recruitment
• Manpower
• Michael Page International
• Oracle
• Professional Advantage
• Ross Human Directions
• SAP Australia
• Service Stream
• Skilled group
• Syndergy Plus
• Technical resources
• Westaff
• Wizard Information Services