The Tax Office has invited Australia’s small business owners to apply to join its new small business consultation panel.

This has been built with an aim to help cut the red tape small businesses are saddled with and boost its efficacy when dealing with small business owners.

The Tax Office is looking for small business operators with at least two years experience running a business and which has up to $2 million in annual turnover. It has stressed that taxation, consulting or accounting experience is not necessary.

Small business representatives will provide the small business person’s view on Tax Office and other government agency business processes.

Appointed small business owners, referred to by the Tax Office as the consultation panel’s “multi-use list” of representatives, will be used as a central database to manage small business experts and to better facilitate engagement in workshops and programs.

Representatives will be contracted on a short-term, “as needed” basis to participate in various consultation activities, including;

• providing feedback on processes and documentation
• participating in workshops
• providing opinions from the perspective of a small business operator
• conducting end-user testing on products and prototypes, and/or
• writing articles (eg. for industry newsletters).

Representatives will be remunerated for all activities undertaken.

The Tax Office’s Second Commissioner, Neil Olesen, said the panel will help it to better understand the way small businesses interact with the organisation and other government agencies.

“Our objective for the panel is to explore opportunities to reduce the time it takes for business operators to comply with their employer, super and tax obligations so they can get back to the important job of running their small business,” he said.

Applications are open for the remainder of 2014. Interested small business operators (with two years experience and with an annual turnover of less than $2 million) can email smallbusinessconsultation@ato.gov.au to request an information and application pack, or see this office for more details.