Long service leave for the self-employed

If you’re self-employed and working in the black coal mining industry, it’s useful to understand your obligations to yourself as well as to your eligible employees. We’re occasionally asked whether a self-employed worker should pay their own long service leave payments and, if so, what to pay and how to pay. Whether you pay or not depends on whether you are deemed an 'eligible employee' under the legislation and whether you're paid an 'eligible wage'. Under the governing legislation, levies are required to be paid on ‘eligible wages’ for ‘eligible employees’ to be able to accrue long service leave. (Refer Part 5A, section 39A of the Admin Act for definitions.) Given sole traders don’t typically pay themselves a wage, their hours do not count as service within the black coal mining industry and therefore they are not able to accrue long service leave. However, if you are self-employed under a company structure such as Pty Ltd or Trust and the company pays you a wage, it must register with Coal LSL register with Coal LSL and pay a 2% levy on all eligible wages for yourself and any other employee in your company who is performing eligible duties. Information about levy reporting. It’s important to note that not being eligible to accrue long service leave yourself does not preclude you from being obligated to pay a levy for any of your employees who are performing eligible duties. If you have further questions or would like to register, please get in touch with our friendly Client Engagement team.