Adam Gerard, appearing for the Chief Commissioner of State Revenue, and leading Richard Raffell, successfully defended tax assessments issued by the Chief Commissioner to the Plaintiffs under the Payroll Tax Act 2007 (NSW).
The Plaintiffs conducted commercial cleaning enterprises and did so pursuant to the terms of contracts the Plaintiffs had entered with their various clients. The Plaintiffs fulfilled the services required under those client contracts through a mixture of employees and subcontractor labour. The Chief Commissioner assessed the payments made by the Plaintiffs to the subcontractors as wages within s.40(1)(a) of the Payroll Tax Act.
Principally, the proceedings concerned whether the Plaintiffs’ respective client contracts constituted employment agency contracts within the meaning of s.37(1) of the Payroll Tax Act. The Supreme Court (Hmelnitsky J) upheld the whole of the Chief Commissioner’s assessments, dismissing the Plaintiffs’ proceedings with costs.