OhanaRose said:
Does anyone know the procedures on how to pay tax/deal with centrelink?
What are some good tips to get me started working as a cam model in Australia without doing it illegally.
It is really confusing and there isn't any information I have found on the web that documents this.
Centrelink don't care what you're doing, where you're doing it etc. They only care about the money you have earned in the fortnight. As long as you declare your earnings for the reporting fortnight period, that is all they need. (NB: Centrelink don't care when you get paid your money, they just want to know how much you have earned in the time. So if your reporting period is Sep 1-14, you declare how much you have made in that time. It's irrelevant if MFC take another week to physically pay you, what counts in that 1-14 period is what you have earned, not what you have been paid. This sucks at the start, but only for the first period or two then it settles down.)
Centrelink will want to know who you're working for and, while privacy is supposedly well enshrined there, I wouldn't necessarily tell them more than you needed to - either tell them you're subcontracting to an overseas company and put your OWN name on the form or, if MFC have a generic registered company name, use that instead. I personally know one person whose private details were hacked by his ex-wife to track him down so please do try and cover yourself.
If they ask what the job is, try getting away with "web services" or somesuch. In my experience, the best way to get a positive result out of Centrelink is to actually go in there as face to face works best. Be as friendly and helpful as possible to the person you are talking to, never get angry with them (since they didn't set up the system) and listen to what they tell you. Believe it or not, most of them do their jobs because they want to help people but it's hard to help someone who is either getting angry or being dishonest. (In your circumstances, I don't think it would be out of line to request a female case officer to talk to, both to avoid embarrassment or discomfort on either of your parts and to minimise the chance of an officer abusing their position - guys can get weird when sex is involved :lol: )
As for the tax side - forget anything anyone tells you about GST or ABN. GST (Goods & Services Tax) is only applicable for money earned from Australian businesses. You are not collecting GST, you are not charging GST, you don't care about GST.
ABN's (Australian Business Numbers) also only really matter amongst Australian businesses. If you were working as a contractor for an Aussie business, you would need one. However, you do NOT need to get one for MFC.
When it comes time for your tax, there is a special type of income called PSI (Personal Services Income) which applies to you. It is designed for times where you are selling your services more than an actual product. It's mostly used by artists, performers etc since the thing people are paying for is you, not your work. I had to look into for my own return this year as I was self-employed doing web design. I expected it to be much harder than it was (not that it was totally easy to work out, but once I read a few definitions of PSI on the
Australian Tax Office website, it made sense.
Also, keep track of anything which might count as an expense for camming - you will be able to claim a portion of your internet, makeup, lingerie, whiteboards, any damn thing that you use for webcam work (even if you only use part of it for camming - eg, if you buy lipstick and sometimes wear it on cam and sometimes wear it going out, you could claim a percentage of the cost).
I highly recommend getting an accountant come tax time for that - the tax office are cracking down on falsely declared expenses and I'm sure that just mentioning underwear or dildos as expenses will be enough to get your file scrutinised carefully. Much better to have an accountant lodge it, then it's their liability, not yours :-D .
Don't waste time (or money) seeing an accountant first, wait until next year. In the meantime, keep all receipts which you think might be claimable together and write on the back a good description of the item, the date of purchase and the amount since most receipts these days fade quite badly within a few months and it sucks having a bunch of papers you KNOW were claimable that you now can't read - trust me on this one.
The biggest warning I can give you is that YOU are entirely responsible for paying your own income tax. Either set aside a portion of your pay in an untouchable bank account (ie, one where withdrawals are only possible in one branch or term-deposits) or be prepared for a possibly (hopefully) MASSIVE tax bill to come later. Err on the side of caution with this - much better to have saved too much and then have extra money available than to have saved too little and face a huge debt.
Good luck Ohana, I look forward to seeing you on MFC sometime (assuming you don't block our whole country out of safety
)
