Payroll tax changes to ensure access to essential GP care for veterans in NSW: RACGP

The Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP) has applauded the NSW Government for amending payroll tax rules to ensure ongoing access to essential general practice care for Veterans with a Gold, White or Orange Department of Veteran’s Affairs (DVA) card.

The Parliament of New South Wales passed a bill today to abolish payroll tax on the care veterans receive from independent GPs in NSW.

This expansion of NSW’s Bulk-Billing Support Initiative means services billed to veterans will count towards the threshold needed to benefit from the payroll tax rebate. It will apply retrospectively, from 4 September 2024.

RACGP NSW&ACT Chair Dr Rebekah Hoffman said: “I applaud the Minns Labor Government for acting on our calls to amend payroll tax rules for independent GPs caring for our veterans, to ensure they can continue to do so viably.

“GPs told us it had become financially unviable to provide care to veterans after NSW introduced payroll tax on independent GPs this year. Veterans usually receive bulk billed care from GPs, but their DVA rebates don’t cover the full costs of providing their care. The extra payroll tax impost on top of this was unsustainable – putting access to essential healthcare for veterans at risk.

“These changes ensure ongoing access to essential GP care for veterans in NSW, and that the GPs and practices providing this care can do so sustainably.”

General practices have always paid payroll tax on their employees, including receptionists, GPs in training, and nurses, but it never applied to GPs because most are not employees, they work under independent agreements.

This changed after a final ruling by the NSW Court of Appeal in 2023 deemed independent practitioners as employees for payroll tax purposes. 

In June this year, the NSW Government agreed to no retrospective tax, and an exemption tied to general practices meeting bulk billing thresholds, after strong warnings from the RACGP that this would result in widespread practice bankruptcies and closures.

 ~ENDS

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) is the peak representative organisation for general practice, the backbone of Australia’s health system. We set the standards for general practice, facilitate lifelong learning for GPs, connect the general practice community, and advocate for better health and wellbeing for all Australians.

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