JOIN THE EFFORT

Transport Matters Party Victoria

February 15th

The deregulation of the Taxi and Hire Car Industries and the harm it has caused is far from over!
#UnfinishedBusiness #UnFairnessFund #TMPNews

Dear Mr Barton,

I appreciate that you have personal understanding of the destruction of the Victorian Taxi and Hire Car industry.

To this end, I write so seek your assistance in enabling the ATO to better understand the taxation impacts of the fairness fund payments.

Last year my taxi owning son received $150.000 from the Victorian Government’s very unfair Fairness Fund.

He received this money only because as his mother I went to ‘bat’ for him as I saw him fall into a serious mental and Physical decline as he came to grips with the fact that his purchased taxi licence - full cost $340.000 was to become valueless.
His decline was evidenced by 3 admittances into Psychiatric Hospitals during the very unreasonable 4 year long duration of the Fels inquiry and the subsequent Andrews governments planning to implement the recommendations.

Seeing his decline, I gained Full and Enduring Power of Attorney for him and took over the management of his taxi, and naively thought I and other taxi industry colleagues could get some of the then sitting politicians to learn and understand the damage they were inflicting on the taxi industry.

I learned there was minimal political interest in understanding what the real situation of the taxi industry was as the government forged ahead with its gut wrenching destructive industry decimation agenda.

The announcements of the laughable, badly planned and managed Taxi industry fairness fund and its subsequent application process more than caught my attention because by that time my son’s mortgage debt was in excess of $210.000, with nothing to show for it. I determined to make an application to the fund on my sons behalf.

Over time my application grew into a fight as the fairness fund administrators sought to wear me down by requesting the same information over and over.

I fought them because it wasn’t enough for them to have medical reports confirming his hospital admissions and confirmations of his state of being from his Doctors. They were wanting full detail on his medical records before making a decision! Which I refused not once but two times!

In my last communication to the fund, with my ‘back against the wall’ I indicated that I had enough of the prying and if the application was rejected I would turn all of our communication over to the media.
Then with no response, came months of waiting, and I assumed that the battle had been lost, and finally with no advance notice a cheque for $150.000 was sent to my son.

With the so called generosity of the government giving out a non- negotiable payout in lieu of the theft of his taxi licence a large amount of the fund money went straight to mortgage reduction which in turn softened the emotional and financial pressure and alleviated a slow recovery process for my son.

Then recent advice from his accountant informed him and myself that because the payment was deemed income and not staggered. My son is now facing an enormous taxation bill from this artificial income that shows for 2018 he earned in excess of $200.000 which means a huge income tax bill for this year, and provisional tax for next year and maybe years on.

The net impact of this fairness fund payment is that yes the fairness fund enabled a reduction in his business mortgage but now he now has a crippling tax burden. A fair process absolutely not!

Dealing with the demands of this tax burden again sees my son in an downwardly destructive mental health trough. I appreciate that you know that the ATO has deemed the payment as taxable income.

The ATO will also allow a payment plan for his tax bill, however to meet the payment amount for this year my son will need to either take out another mortgage in a climate of increasingly tightening financial controls and lending services by the banks with no guarantee he will be able to get the right sized loan to meet his tax bill.

The other option is for him to negotiate a payment plan with the ATO that will hang over his head for years and years.

The ATO needs to understand what the Victorian Government has done to the Fairness Fund recipients, and identify where and how this situation can be amended, because fairness by the State Government simply did not happen.

My question to you, is that in your role as a new parliamentarian can you in an official capacity raise this issue with the Andrews Government – (my inner-self tells me they will not want to know! ). Can you also approach the Federal government specifically the ATO to ask if this fairness fund payout can be re-assessed to enable a staged taxation return that could stagger the taxation burden not only for my son but for the many others who are caught in this State Labor Government driven mess.

I am also contacting the member for Benambra Mr W Tilley again with no expectations, as it was the Liberal Government who started the taxi industry destruction however whilst I am hopeful you might be able to help one or two of them understand their industry reform failure, you will not convince all of them. Please note I fully acknowledge the taxi and hire car industry needed some reform, but it did not need to be destroyed!
I believe the Liberal Parliamentarions who are still in place, need to better understand the chaos their legislation created along with the taxation impacts of the so called fairness fund that the Labor Government established.

Further to my request to you, I am also contacting The Federal member for Indi Ms Cathy McGowan and again have no expectation that she can do much to assist because she recently announced she will not be contesting her seat at the up-coming Federal Election in May.

In closing, I would be most appreciative of whatever action you may be able to undertake to address this significant income/taxation mess caused by the Victorian Labor Government and look forward to hearing from you

Kind regards
Mrs XXXX ... See MoreSee Less