Hello,

I have been living in Sydney for 1.5 years now here on a 4-year 457 work visa. I was recently told by my employer that I qualify for LAFHA and that my next paycheck will be reflective of these changes (approximately $300-$400 per month more). This was pointed out after a new employee started working for the company and provided this information. My Question; is there a way to re-claim the lost income by myself or the Employer. If NOT, is this the responsibility of the Human Resources department to know the tax laws and should my Employer be held responsible for the lost income. Or is this my fault for not knowing the Australian Tax system. Any thoughts would be most appreciated, thanks in advance.

Hmm - interesting question. It is your responsiblity to ensure that LAFHA is part of your contract. Also your employer is under no legal obligation to include LAFHA.

I think you should be glad of the extra money you are now getting and not rock the boat - they may decide to change their minds again !

So it is my responsibility to know Australian HR Tax laws before moving here. OK, that makes no sense... as I would have thought my Employer should be looking out for my best interests and especially it doesn't cost them anything but 5 mins of their time to fill out some forms...Maybe it's not a legal obligation, but if it doesn't cost them anything..then mabye it's a moral obligation???

Good employers would do as you suggest. However it does take a bit of organisation on their part and will cause the payroll department some additional headaches too for the whole time you are in their employ - a little bit more than 5 minutes of form filling !

One of my employers refused to do it as they had no experience of it and didn't want to get into it.

The food and hardship components of LAFHA are also taxable to the employer as they are fringe benefits (fringe benefit tax). So it does cost them something !

Thanks Colin for the input as it truely is appreciated. But it there does appear to be some discrepancy when it comes to the Employer's and LAFHA costing them money and time. For some background, I'm not talking about a small company with 1 HR person, this is a large international company with 20 offices world wide. Regarding the TIME aspect, we live in the Computer Age, how hard is it for HR to press a few extra buttons OR have a system in place for these calculations to take place. Regarding the COST aspect to the Employer the discrepancy on this website even shows previous comments made by yourself:Posted 22 August 2006 05:25 AM --> "Not all employers will do it for you and they will need to assess their tax position if they offer it as part of your salary package, as I believe they will have to pay Fringe Benefit tax on it. However I am sure there is some way that they can come out on top too !!"

It still feels as if HR is not doing their Job!!

quote:

It still feels as if HR is not doing their Job!!

Perhaps.

It is also up to the employee to negotiate their own employment contract. If you were not properly briefed beforehand or you did not do enough research, that is you not doing your job properly. It is inappropriate to say your employers HR section was not doing their job. Perhaps coming onto a forum such as this, before you migrated would have been beneficial.

When you join the forum after you've been working here for 1.5 years and want to complain about your own "oversight", the best we can do is be sympathetic and tell you the facts.

Cheers

I agree with you on some points BullcreekBob, it is my fault for not doing my own research into the Australian Tax laws and to blindly think that my Employer is looking out for my best interests. Forums like these are great to have around and should be used by everyone, and I've now learned that the hard way. Maybe the HR department should just tell us upfront how incompetent they are about the existing tax laws of their OWN country and provide us a link to forums like these.