As you probably already know, properly categorising workers as either employees or independent contractors is an important issue.

A recent decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Associated Translators & Linguists Pty Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation, showed how this distinction can affect a businesses liability to pay workers’ superannuation guarantee charges.

The case showed that when deciding whether workers are employees or contractors, the courts will look at a number of factors (we have called these ‘control factors’ in the Employment Law Practical Handbook’s chapter on Independent Contractors).

They will look at the structure of your organisation and how the worker fits into that structure. In other words, they will pay close attention to whether the work the worker performs constitutes the service of your business, or whether you use the worker’s work as an ‘input’ in order to provide your usual service.

In Associated Translators & Linguists Pty Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation, the work relationship in question was quite ambiguous. There were a number of factors that suggested the relationship was one of an independent contractor. For example:
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