William Buck welcomes today’s announcement that the Queensland Revenue Office will next week issue a Payroll Tax ruling confirming that when patients make payments directly to practitioners, payroll tax will not apply to the medical centre operator.
This ruling confirms the ‘flow of funds’ solution that William Buck has presented to national health industry audiences since early this year and that the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has strongly advocated for.
Paul Copeland, Head of Health Services at William Buck said that this ruling will “provide much-needed clarity to an issue that has caused significant stress to the health industry”.
“William Buck has been working with clients to implement the ‘flow of funds solution’, for some time now,” said Paul.
“Under this process, patients pay practitioners directly for their services and then the practitioner pays a service fee back to the practice.”
“This announcement confirms that this process falls outside the ambit of the payroll tax legislation, which is a welcome relief for GPs and practice owners who work tirelessly to care for patients. It also alleviates the need for any allowance for payroll tax to be passed on to patients.”
The ‘flow of funds model will involve changes to the nominated bank accounts for practitioners for the distribution of funds from Medicare. It will also see changes to point-of-sale terminals to allow payments to be made directly to practitioners as opposed to a nominated bank account of the medical centre.
“Systems can now be adopted and practices can move forward, structuring their arrangements with certainty,” said Paul.
The Queensland Government has also announced an extension to the expressions of interest deadline for the Queensland Revenue Office GP Payroll Tax Amnesty until 10 November 2023. The previous deadline was 29 September 2023.
