Whose Long Service Leave?

[silentC]

No wait, there's a new regulation as of last year:

(4) If:

(a) a building is to be erected by or on behalf of a church or a non-profit organisation, or by an owner-builder, and

(b) the building is to be erected wholly or partly by voluntary labour, or by the labour of the owner-builder, and

(c) the Corporation so approves,

a long service levy is not, for the purposes of section 34 (2) (c) of the Act, payable in respect of the voluntary component of the erection of the building.

EDIT: It's been there for awhile, at least since 2000 probably longer... Hard to follow this bloody legislation sometimes.

[pawnhead]

I also find out a couple of years ago that I should have registered and am now about $10K out of pocket....

I'm sure they can backdate it a certain number of years if you've got records from your accountant, and he verifies that you were working in the industry. I was self employed and I was always registered. I haven't claimed it yet although I could.
Have you looked right into it?

[silentC]

Yes, the regs seem to support that but the key is c) the Corporation so approves, which means you would have to substantiate it somehow.

Anyone could go in and say, yeah I'm going to build the whole house myself. To all intents and purposes, we did exactly that with our place. If I'd been aware of this loophole, I would have tried it on just out of interest. Trouble is, I imagine it would have bogged our approvals process down a bit and we were up against the introduction of BASIX, which I wanted to avoid at all costs.

[Wood Butcher]

so If you were an owner builder doing most of the work yourself, you could legitimately submit a lower estimate, just paying it on materials and estimated sub contractor costs.

According to the Council approval blokes I dealt with a few years ago if you are an owner builder you must count your time as though you are being paid. For example when I was building my shed the material cost came to $5400, so to keep well under the $6000 limit for not needing to have an OB license I said $200 labour. The council refused my initial application on the grounds that it would cost a lot more than $200 in labour to have a concrete slab poured and erect the shed. I tried to argue the point that since I was doing it myself that it wouldn't cost a thing but it was rejected anyway. I resubmitted the application adjustring the figures to make the labour component around $1000 (but still keeping under $6000) and it was approved.

Sounds stupid but that's what I had to do.

[silentC]

That's when you are estimating the cost of the development, which determines, amongst other things, the threshold over which you must pay LSL, do an owner builder course, and it determines their fees (so of course they want it at or above market rates).

However, they can't tell you that you have to count your own unpaid effort in the determination of the actual LSL amount because the regs say you don't have to, providing you have approval from the long service leave corporation. How to get that is the tricky part I suspect and good luck finding anyone working for a council approvals department who knows how or has even heard of the idea...

[Bleedin Thumb]

I'm sure they can backdate it a certain number of years if you've got records from your accountant, and he verifies that you were working in the industry. I was self employed and I was always registered. I haven't claimed it yet although I could.
Have you looked right into it?

yeh been there they will give me $2K i think, but I feel like I should take them to court- its actually more like $12K + interest they owe me and I bet if I claim the $2K I loose any rights for further compensation.

Of course I probably will never get around to (read afford to ) sueing them so I should just take the $2K.

EDIT Silent they will only approve claims back 5 years with back up info. I can back up 24 years worth but they wont recognise this. Even though 20 -22 years ago i went into their office and registered my employees which means my information must have been included. But who will do a search like that unless they are being sued or similar.
I have about $1k sitting in a Westpac account from 1982 that i found out about on the ASIC site. Has my address and full name which is a bit unusual so there is no one in Australia with that name. The catch 22 is I cant prove that I lived in that address 24 years ago because I was renting and it was prior to electronic records being kept, even the ATO cant help.

[pawnhead]

Oops. People have quoted me before I edited the section out.
I removed it after I noticed silentCs post above mentioning the exemption for owner builders, so I thought my comments were obsolete.

Sorry for the confusion, I'm not an expert on the topic. I just know that I've got some money owing to me. $$

[pawnhead]

How to get that is the tricky part I suspect and good luck finding anyone working for a council approvals department who knows how or has even heard of the idea...

Bloody govts are experts at red tape.

I can back up 24 years worth but they wont recognise this.

That would amount to enough dough to be worth fighting for. Surely if you've got all your records you'd have a right to it. A general statute of limitations is 14 years, and if you initiated inquiries some years ago, then it should backdate from then I'd imagine.
They shouldn't be allowed to just make their own determination of how far back you can claim I'd have thought.

Like silentC says though, you're probably bashing your head against a brick wall talking to them.

[craigb]

O.K. well it wasn't clear to me who the LSL was for, I thought perhaps it was for the council's workers.

I now realise that it's for the building workers. It does seem a bloody strange way of going about things though.

Why home owners should be liable for a builder's LSL escapes me frankly.

Oh well, I've coughed up now anyway.

[Bleedin Thumb]

[quote=craigb;454310]
Why home owners should be liable for a builder's LSL escapes me frankly.

quote]

As far as I know it never started out that way. It was always payable on multi million Dollar projects. I think it was 0.5% of construction costs. I don't know when the LSL became applicable to small domestic work.

I bet you would couldn't get a freeedom of info claim to see the size of their coffers Vs potential claimants It would be one of the quietest Gov departments, where does all that money go?

[pawnhead]

I now realise that it's for the building workers. It does seem a bloody strange way of going about things though.

Why home owners should be liable for a builder's LSL escapes me frankly.

Oh well, I've coughed up now anyway.

I agree that it's a strange way to collect it. As BT says, I'm not so sure that I'd trust the govt. with the money with all their inefficient bureaucracy and red tape. They should stick to non profitable essential services such as public transport, health, education, defence etc, and leave private industry to sort itself out.
But you'd be paying somehow anyway. You probably get LSL yourself, and you'd get it from whoever is purchasing your services, so it's one less charge that tradies have to pass on. I'm pretty sure that it would be cheaper for you if they did it though, and a lot of them wouldn't bother and would just go without.
I'll just treat mine as a windfall whenever I choose to cash it in.

[craigb]

I'm not against LS. As you say, I benefit from it myself. I just think that the builder should manage it as part of his on costs. Of course there'd be an amount factored into the job for it.

It seems to me though that most of the trades the builder will use are subbies. Who is paying their LSL?

Actually I smell a rat. I can see that it was probably introduced in the first place as BT says to ensure that big building firms were paying their employees LSL. Over time, somebody has realised what a nice little earn it is for the government to have alll this LSL sitting in a Govt account earning interest and so why not extend it to the hapless homeowner as we are now the builder's "employer". The fact that he's a business doesn't seem to matter.

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. It's just another one of lifes little injustices.

[pawnhead]

It seems to me though that most of the trades the builder will use are subbies. Who is paying their LSL?

Anyone in the industry can claim it. I've been a self employed subbie, chippie, builder all my life and I've never worked for wages with all the perks. It's not worth it if you're any good at your trade.