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Contractors
I Worked on an ABN — Where’s My Super?
ALITAX · Bilal Jivraj — Registered Tax Agent 25287564. Original guidance from 10+ years of DASP and tax casework.
This is one of the most common and painful situations we see. If you worked on an ABN (Australian Business Number) as a contractor, the rules are very different — and often not in your favour.
Working on an ABN means no super — and usually no tax refund
When you work on an ABN, you are treated as a contractor running your own business, not an employee. That means:
- No employer super: your “employer” is not necessarily required to pay super for you (though in some cases they legally should have). So there may be no super to claim.
- No tax withheld: no tax is taken out of your pay during the year — so at tax time you owe the tax, rather than getting a refund.
How some employers exploit this
Because many workers do not know the rules, some businesses put them on an ABN to avoid paying super and PAYG tax. It shifts the whole tax burden onto you. If you did the same work as an employee, you would have super and likely a refund — on an ABN, you often have neither.
The ATO is not a charity
An important truth many people misunderstand: the ATO only refunds tax you have actually overpaid. It is not free money.
Simple example
If your correct tax for the year is $15,000, and you paid $16,000 through your wages, you get $1,000 back — the excess. But if you worked on an ABN and paid nothing during the year, you would owe the ATO $15,000, not receive a refund.
If you are on an ABN and unsure where you stand, contact us — we will work out exactly what you owe or are owed, and whether any super should have been paid.
Not sure how this applies to you? At ALITAX we handle exactly these situations every day — and check what you’re owed in super and tax, for free.