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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-04-30 Daily Xml
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General Practitioner Payroll Tax

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): My question is to the Treasurer. Is the Treasurer aware of comments made by the AMA in their report published on 19 April 2024 and, if so, what does he say in response to them? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: The AMA report says:

…South Australian doctors continue to bang our heads against the brick wall of the Treasurer's office, trying to explain why payroll tax on medical practitioners will only continue to steer these lines—

of the percentage of urgent ED patients seen in less than 30 minutes—

towards increasingly unacceptable milestones.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:23): I thank the leader for his question. I continue to have productive discussions with both the AMA and its leadership as well as the royal college representing GPs here in South Australia about this issue of payroll tax. As members would recall from the information I have provided in previous answers, it has become clear across a range of jurisdictions across Australia after a couple of court cases that GP practices—of course, above a certain threshold of taxable wages—are liable for payroll tax. That had not been realised by many GPs or their practices, or practice managers as some of them have now.

It is important for me to reiterate again that there is no change to payroll tax. There has been no change to the treatment or the interpretation or anything in fact when it comes to payroll tax legislation, regulation or policy here in South Australia, except for the fact that what we have done is try to take a pretty balanced and more generous approach here in South Australia than is the case in other jurisdictions, working with GPs and their representatives, including the AMA and the Royal College, so that we can ensure that those GPs who are liable for payroll tax, and who haven't been paying payroll tax, can come into compliance with their tax obligations.

As I have previously pointed out to the house, we do have here in South Australia a number of GP practices that have been paying payroll tax for a number of years, and the challenge for governments around the country is how they can equitably administer their payroll tax regimes when we have a cohort in the community who are liable for payroll tax, some of whom have been meeting those payroll tax obligations, but a large number who haven't, to make sure that we can treat everyone consistently and fairly.

It is why I have taken the decision as Treasurer—pretty much as soon as the issue was raised with me by the Royal College—to immediately agree to their demand that we would not do what is the normal treatment for taxpayers who have not been meeting their obligations, and go back and look at the last five years of their taxable wages, and charge them back taxes plus penalty and interest. We immediately said that we wouldn't be doing that. We also agreed very quickly that we would provide a further full 12 months in the current financial year—for the 2023-24 financial year—effectively an exemption for those GPs who were liable for payroll tax who had not been complying with their payroll tax obligations.

I am still in discussions with the AMA. I have to say the conversations that I have with the AMA, as well as the Royal College, have been very productive, very cordial, and we are continuing to work through what is no doubt a challenging issue for them because, as I said the last time I updated the house about this issue, GPs, of course, have been suffering 10 years of not having any increase in remuneration, under the previous coalition federal government. They froze the Medicare Benefits Schedule payments to GPs. Imagine not having a pay rise for 10 years. Well that is how those opposite treat GPs. We try to treat them a little more generously.

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