Double slug hits Holden staff

Holden workers who took one for the team by accepting a tough new pay deal will get slugged again because their car packages will be affected by proposed new tax changes. Workers at the beleaguered factory have lost a pay rise, will get fewer breaks and can now get sacked for inefficiency, but they voted for the deal to help the company keep going.

But now many - if not most of them – stand to be hit again because they are on lease schemes run under the current fringe benefits tax system, the system the Government proposes to change. Toyota workers also have vehicles as part of their salary package or leased through the company. It is understood that the FBT changes could make such schemes unsustainable.

A Holden spokesman did not have exact numbers of those affected but said “many of our employees lease vehicles from Holden”. “If the proposed FBT changes became law we would have to make an assessment of whether we could continue to lease cars to our employees in the same way,” he said.

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According to the Australian Salary Packaging Industry Association, four out of five people affected by the changes are public sector workers such nurses, police and teachers. A spokesperson for Industry Minister Kim Carr said the FBT changes, which close a loophole and make it more difficult to get tax concessions, and add to the red tape burden, made the system fairer. “These changes do not discriminate against any one company or group of workers. We believe that no taxpayer should have to subsidise the costs for someone else’s private use of a motor vehicle,” they said.

The spokesperson for Senator Carr said the Government was providing a $200 million “short-term stimulus measure”, and a commitment to making all Commonwealth fleets Australian-made in contrast with the Coalition policy of reducing subsidies by $500 million.