🇦🇺Australia

Strafzahlungen wegen falscher Lohnsteuer- und STP-Meldungen für Freelancer

Updated: Feb 20262 verified sources

Definition

Project‑based animation and post‑production studios widely rely on "freelancers" who in practice work regular hours on‑site or remotely like casual employees. If hours are tracked ad‑hoc in spreadsheets, email or per‑project tools without a robust audit trail or award logic, studios commonly: (1) misapply PAYG‑withholding because taxable hours or rates are entered incorrectly; (2) fail to recognise that some long‑term or integrated freelancers should be treated as employees for Superannuation Guarantee (SG) purposes, triggering unpaid super; and (3) under‑record overtime, penalties or allowances required under Australian labour law. ATO guidance states that employers who underpay super must pay the Superannuation Guarantee Charge (SGC), including nominal interest and administration fees, and these amounts are not tax‑deductible, magnifying the cost. Fair Work Ombudsman guidance further shows that underpayments (e.g. from missing overtime or weekend loadings) can lead to back‑pay orders plus penalties per contravention. In a studio with, for example, 10–20 regular freelancers, even small systematic errors from manual timesheets can accumulate to tens of thousands of dollars in back‑payments and penalties when discovered in an ATO or Fair Work audit. Modern time tracking tools marketed to Australian businesses explicitly integrate hours, award rates and payroll to "take care of award rates, overtime, and other time tracking needs in a way that aligns with Australian labour laws" and push hours directly into payroll systems to reduce such errors.[2] Without this integration, each manual data re‑entry step is a failure point with direct regulatory cost.

Key Findings

Financial Impact: Logic-based estimate: For a studio using 15 regular freelancers whose time is manually tracked, misclassification and hour under‑recording leading to 5% underpayment of earnings/super over 3 years can trigger: (a) back‑pay and super shortfall of ~AUD 45,000 (e.g. AUD 60/hour × 30 hours/week × 48 weeks/year × 15 freelancers × 3 years × 5%); (b) non‑deductible SGC interest and admin of ~AUD 5,000–10,000; and (c) civil penalties from Fair Work and/or ATO in the range of AUD 13,000–66,000 per serious contravention for companies, making a realistic combined exposure in the order of AUD 60,000–120,000 in an adverse audit scenario.
Frequency: Most likely in studios with 10–100 rotating freelancers where producers or line managers approve hours via email/Excel and a bookkeeper rekeys data into payroll and BAS/STP systems under time pressure each pay cycle.
Root Cause: Fragmented manual recording of freelancer hours across projects; lack of integration between time tracking and payroll; misunderstanding of when freelancers must be treated as employees for PAYG, SG and award purposes; no systematic audit trail of hours and approvals.

Why This Matters

The Pitch: Animation and post‑production studios in Australia 🇦🇺 easily risk AUD 20,000–100,000+ over a few years through misreported hours and underpaid entitlements on project‑based freelancers. Automating time capture, award interpretation and payroll exports from one system eliminates most of this compliance risk.

Affected Stakeholders

Studio owner / managing director, Head of production / line producer, Finance manager / bookkeeper, HR/payroll officer, Freelance animators, editors, compositors, sound designers