As a freelance writer and performer, I’m dusting off my very old accounting degree to provide some clarity where I can to arts businesses and artists during the COVID-19 crisis.

There is a lot of confusion at the moment regarding our industry and the support available. I attended a webinar from BDO accountants this morning and this is what I have come to understand.

Please note firstly that this is general information and each situation has its own variations.

The situation is currently still evolving. The legislation passed yesterday allows the treasury office to make “rules” about who gets the payment and who doesn’t so there is still room to rally. All activism should be directed to the treasury office.

Also, it would be great to get an indication of what support arts practitioners need at the moment from an accounting perspective (please comment below). I’d like to allocate some of my time to helping people during this time.

1) You can go onto Job Keeper as a sole trader if you can show your income has dropped 30% and you have an ABN (the 30% drop applies to your ABN income for those who use a combination of PAYG and ABN income). The payment is $1500 per fortnight for 6 months. You will be taxed before you get the payment so it might end up being $1300. You can register your interest to get this payment here however you may be better off on Job Seeker (see below) https://www.ato.gov.au/general/gen/JobKeeper-payment/. We do not have information yet on how you will need to prove the 30% drop. Once this info is available I will do another post. It will most likely be comparing a month of income before COVID-19 vs after COVID-19. 16 years and over is the age for this payment.

2) All arts practitioners should be looking into this option because you could potentially get more money than if you are on Job Keeper. Anyone can go onto Job Seeker, if you have lost your job or are a freelancer or contractor who has lost work. They have waived the asset test, so it doesn’t matter what assets you have. You can still make money on this payment, but how much you can make is listed on this web page, it depends on your circumstances. What’s really great is that they have raised the partnered household income to $3,086.80 gross per fortnight (this includes income your partner makes and includes all forms of income, even rental income from an investment property). You need to be 22 years old (see point 4. below if you are under). This payment also includes a coronavirus subsidy of $550 on top of the regular job seeker payment which is a sliding scale depending on how much you make (refer here https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/jobseeker-payment/how-much-you-can-get). The $550 subsidy will only be paid for 6 months. Job Seeker payments don’t get taxed before the money hits your account but they need to be included in your tax return. If your overall income is less than $18,200 then you don’t need to pay tax. You can apply for this payment through Centerlink. Also note that if you have applied for this payment between 12 March 2020 to 13 April 2020 (inclusive) you get a $750 one off payment. If you have a disability you can apply for the disability payment. Mutual Obligations for Job Seeker have been waved at present. You will need to provide a profit and loss statement and have your previous tax return completed. From personal experience, arts businesses on Job Seeker can argue that their arts business is their work and as such they can usually get out of working in other areas. I believe in the current climate they won’t be doing much chasing.

3) Regarding Job Keeper for non-sole traders, eligible employers (that have had a drop of 30% in income, there are also some other considerations) will need to apply to the ATO to pay their employees the Job Keeper payment (see points below on which employees). Employers will need to register their interest with the ATO. Job Keeper was created so that employers and employees can maintain their relationship and this payment only lasts 6 months. It’s so you can pick up where you left off. You will need to “return to each other”. It’s not clear yet what will happen if you don’t, you may have to pay the money back. Refer to this fact sheet from the treasury office. The employer has to initiate this process. They are not forced to. You will need to let your employer know that you would like the Job Keeper payment. So what “kind of employees” can get the Job Keeper?

a) Full time employees.
b) Part-time employees
c) Casual employees that have been with the company for 12 months or more as of March the 1st
d) Fixed term contractors, if they had a contract with an employer as of the 1st of March. If you are on a casual contract, you have to have had the contract for 12 months or more. If you are eligible approach your current employer, and they would get the payment for the duration of their contract. I’m looking into whether or not those employers would then be able to extend those contracts so the contractor can continue to get the payment for 6 months (if their contract is less than 6 months). This is something we can definitely rally the Treasury Office for at the very least.

Also note, if you don’t usually make $1,500 per fortnight from your employer, please note this from the Treasury website “If you want to claim the subsidy for an eligible employee and they have not been paid $1,500 per fortnight since 30 March 2020, employers must pay a ‘top-up’ payment to employees so that they are eligible. The ATO will provide further guidance on how this will work.”
16 years and over is the age for this payment.

4) If you are under 22 years old you can go onto youth allowance. This payment also includes a coronavirus subsidy of $550 on top of the regular payment which is a sliding scale. https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/youth-allowance-job-seekers/how-much-you-can-get

For Job Keeper, please check out think link of FAQ from the Treasury Office.

Hope this helps! Let me know how else I can use my account degree to help the arts!
If you want to show me some love back you can like my Facebook page!
Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

I started writing this as a Facebook post and then I thought to myself that this deserves a blog post because last night, my Melbourne launch of Just Give Me The Pills, was just – wow. Probably in terms of my career, last night was one of the most powerful nights of my life. It was unexpected that it was so, it almost felt accidental, like all these things came together in this precise way to make it so, but I was the one who made the night happen, so I guess it was not.

I started with my best friend in the world Amy Bodossian hosting and being her beautiful, vulnerable, wacky self that I love and adore. Then Emilie Collyer launches my book with a speech that was also like a review of my book and all I kept thinking was “she gets it, she understands the book” and it got me thinking about how male reviewers and female reviewers are SO different in their interpretation of my work and it is the women who always just nail it. When she read my poem ‘backyard flood’, a reconciliation moment with my family (this is the first part of the poem…)

Backyard Flood
I have wanted the heaven to open all my life
and they did thirty-two years later
Christmas Day at Mum and Dad’s
Hail the size of lemons on the tree
Sheltered by the havoc we knew was due
We all stood on the veranda
Watched in amazement the desecration…

an image came to my mind of my family on the veranda, which happened many years ago, and I thought to myself that because I was brave enough to put my story to the page, my family and our moment, our image is going to remain timeliness, long after I too have passed, and it was in that moment that I felt the power of what I had done, the power of my book, Just Give Me The Pills, that not only will I help other women to be empowered, or people who are in marriages (or situations) where their self-worth is ten feet underground, but this image of my family will be immortal.

And then there was the women! The other performers! I wanted my book launch not to be just a celebration of my book, but I wanted to move the focus away from it being me performing my poetry but to bring poets and singers from migrant backgrounds (ones that inspired me) so together we could make a collective ‘sound’, a collective ‘call’, a collective ‘statement’, that we are women, our families migrated here, and we have a voice. I asked them all to interpret the metaphor ‘just give me the pills’ in any way they liked, and what they came up with was so powerful that by the end of the night when it was my turn to perform I struggled. I thought to myself I don’t know if I’m going to be able to perform! Many of these poets had written their pieces because I had invited them to be a part of my event and what they came up with blew my mind. And to think that I had inspired it! I had been the trigger! This is art.

Kylie Supski’s poem of dabbling outside the margins of normal, Tariro Movondo’s piece about her mother’s struggle as a single mother raising her children as a women of African diaspora, Pascal Latra (accompanied by Jacob Papadopoulos) interpreting the stories of my heritage through Greek blues music and transporting us all to Greece, Misbah Wolf (accompanied by Nick Wolf) and her song about depression called ‘the bell jar’, Angela Costi’s poem about her work as a front line worker helping women in abusive relationships and Amanda Anastasi’s poem about her memories of growing up in multicultural suburbia – all of this poetry together had me thinking beyond my book launch. There is an absence of this collective voice in the arts. Maybe my book launch has inspired me into a different kind of venture! All I could think was I need to bring these women together again, or this idea – women from migrant backgrounds.

Despite this I did perform, and my heart was so overfilled with respect, admiration, love, support, inspiration for not only these women but for the people who came to the event to make it the special and unforgettable night it was. Thank you to all who made it so. x

All images in this post Brendan Bonsack. Thank you to the Greek Community of Melbourne and Victoria for supporting the event. Thank you to my editors Les Zigomanis, Maurice Mcnamara and David Cameron. Thank you to Outside The Box Press.

Kylie Supski

Emilie Collyer

Amanda Anastasi

Amy Bodossian

Misbah Wolf and Nick Wolf

Angela Costi

Pascal Latra and Jacob Papadopoulos