The Opposition will move an amendment in Parliament this week to provide an immediate exemption from payroll tax on payments to GPs and other health practitioners to ensure that essential medical clinics are not forced to close.
Shadow Treasurer Damien Tudehope said some GP clinics are facing demands for retrospective payroll tax bills of a half a million dollars or more, and many medical clinics are now discovering that operating in a particular way made them liable to additional payroll tax.
“Retrospective audits leading to demands for payments of payroll tax covering five years of operation are creating a crisis for these clinics that must be addressed,” Mr Tudehope said. “The best solution to this urgent problem is to provide an amnesty from all such payroll tax for the past five years and an exemption for the next two years while a satisfactory solution is found.”
Shadow Minister for Health Matt Kean said he was concerned about the impacts on hospitals.
“Combined with other pressures on the health system there is a real danger that these clinics may need to close,” Mr Kean said. “This will put serious additional pressure on emergency departments and could result in patients having to wait even longer to receive care.”
Shadow Minister for Regional Health Bronnie Taylor said “the Government is offering $20,000 to get health workers to move to the regions while simultaneously threatening some regional medical clinics with massive tax bills that will force them to close, leaving people in regional NSW without needed health services.”
Shadow Minister for Finance Eleni Petinos said that local GP clinics provide invaluable community services across the state, and the immediate tax relief will help ensure survival of many clinics. “With growing waiting lists across NSW hospitals and ongoing industrial chaos in the health sector, NSW should be seeking to support medical clinics, not imposing a retrospective tax that will see a number wiped out.”