In the recent case of Tech Mahindra Limited v FCT, the Federal Court held that an Indian resident company which carried out IT services for Australian clients both from its Australian permanent establishment (PE) employees and by its Indian employees was liable to tax in Australia in respect of part of the income derived from the services provided from India. …
Should offshore workers throw away their timesheets?
In the Australia CPA September edition of the “In the Black” magazine, there is an interesting article on “Time out on billing”. Part of this article mentions of course the Value pricing that has been proposed by consultants to accounting firms for all of this current century, if not well into last century. Ron Baker, the founder of the VeraSage …
The secret cost of the $9 labour hour
Just recently we had a conversation with an Australian accountant. They’d been using a provider overseas with poor results. By way of background, this Australian accounting firm is one of the what we would term newer firms, i.e. without legacy systems and legacy employee issues. This is a Xero only firm, with a homogeneous and process driven approach, where there …
An NZ Economists view of things
We thought this week we’d strike out into some interesting territory, and Tony Alexander’s BNZ weekly overview of 25th August 2016 gives some interesting reading. With most Australians holding property or intending to invest in Australian property, the NZ outlook gives a good view of our own market. Though it should be remembered that NZ has no stamp duty for property, no …
2025 and the Future of Compliance
2025 is just around the corner, and for pretty much all of us in Australia we’ll be somehow engaged in work or play. Most of the present factors that we see in our daily news will continue to affect work, life and play. Australia will have an increasing need for infrastructure to remain competitive, there will be an ageing population …
Economy in Transition – Startups, innovation and a workforce for the future
The paper, Economy in Transition – Startups, innovation and a workforce for the future, was recently released by StartupAUS, the national start-up advocacy group. The discussion paper warns up to 4.6 million jobs may be at risk if Australia does not prepare its workforce for the digital future. The paper was produced with global networking firm LinkedIn and Sydney startups Expert360 and CodeCamp, and suggests few jobs …
The Shamrock Organisation and the high costs of a Contingent workforce
Just recently an article noted working as a short-term contractor, casual employee, or freelancer is taking its toll on Australian workers. At the same time we are seeing research from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the journal Social Indicators Research, indicating that since 1984 casual employment in Australia has grown from 15 per cent of the workforce to 25 …
CSIRO modelling and the impacts of offshoring and automation on Australian accountants
Last week we mentioned the CSIRO released a report on “Tomorrows digitally enabled workforce”. At 112 pages it’s certainly a detailed document, but it’s worth also looking at the Appendix on modelling. In “Modelling occupation changes in Australia”, the CSIRO identified 4 different work activities: Knowledge, Influencing people, Machines and Movement, Personal Services. In the first model, skills are noted …
Tomorrow’s Digitally Enabled Workforce
Earlier this year the CSIRO released a report on “Tomorrow’s Digitally Enabled Workforce”. Whilst this report is quite a read at 122 pages, this contains significant nuggets of information that give important offerings for accountants, and accounting firm owners. The move to the knowledge economy, offshoring and automation, and the new entrepreneurial freelancer models. As to why this report has …
Relax, a robot might not take 98% of your compliance work
There have been plenty of reports recently about jobs areas “at risk” due to computerization, commoditization and offshoring. A 2013 report on “the future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerization” talks about factors impacting work in the future including the surge in computing power, streamlining of tasks and offshoring. Certainly these issues are still relevant today. This report …
