Damned if we do . . .
I am sending you this document so you can see for your self what we are up against. We have to do company tax, wages tax, supper, workers comp, GST, and then we have to "do this" or "pay some union boss" in Victoria $1600 per annum. As it is our cost of complying with government regulations is over $10,000 per annum. All that before we try to make a garment.
If you look in Ragtrader's [classifieds section] you can have 100 garments made in China - $1000 dollars in value. Nobody can compete with that at any level. We are now in the process of going off shore or having to close. It is just too hard. After 25 years in business I have nothing to sell. Not the label, not the machinery, not the business. All of the above has no value or very little value.
I have a young family and at the age of 60 I have very little prospect of gaining further employment. My business plan is to cash my super and have a go at importing. If that does not work I am stuffed.
Hopefully I will be 65 by then and my youngest child will be in high school. I will just retire on the pension. It is all very depressing.
I feel I have been let down by state and federal governments as well as local authorities. Our rates are five times higher than for the same size residential block. Our rates are $6000 per annum - that is for 500 square metres. Smaller that the average housing block. I must then add land tax of $2800 per annum.
To add insult to injury the council does not From the government prospective it make more sense to have few large companies to oversee and control rather than millions of small businesses. But all level of government do overlook the fact that small business is the biggest employer.
Name withheld
Sydney