Under its Reducing the Regulatory Burden initiative, the Victorian Government made a commitment to reduce the administrative burden ('business red tape) of state regulation by 15% over three years, and 25% over five years from 1 July 2006.
This study assesses the impacts of the State Revenue Office’s payroll tax e-Business initiatives on the reduction of red tape for businesses. This suite of e-Business initiatives, which has been introduced progressively from 2002, allows for processes that were previously undertaken manually to be undertaken electronically. These initiatives include electronic annual adjustments, electronic returns, online payments, electronic records, electronic registration and password reset, and the direct credit allocator.
As of 2005-06, 11% (23,661 businesses) of Victorian businesses paid payroll tax and therefore the related compliance costs do not apply to most Victorian businesses. Further, the majority of the records and data to be kept by these businesses would need to be collected to comply with the requirements of other state and or federal regulators. Accordingly, payroll tax compliance costs in Victoria must be seen in this context.
