Gov't mandated training exp? LO5164

John Sleigh (jsleigh@enternet.com.au)
Sun, 28 Jan 1996 14:26:22 +1100

Replying to LO5033 --

On Jan 22, Norm Nopper asked
>Do any countries require that companies spend a fixed percentage
>of their total payroll on employee training?
>Which countries mandate training expenditures?
>What percentage of payroll is mandated to be spent on training
>for each of these countries?
>If they do not use payroll costs as a factor, then what
>formula(s) do they use?

Australia did mandate a 1% training guarantee levy for about 3 or 4 years
in the early nineties.

1% of payroll was to be either be spent on employee training, paid as a
tax or donated to educational institutions. The amount started at 1%,
rose to 1.5% and was removed before a planned rise to 2%.

There were limits. Organisations had to have a minimum payroll of (I
think) $200,000 before they were required to pay the tax

The number of scams made it a worthless exercise.

I know of one owner of several service stations that set each up as an
independent company, so that he would remain under the thresh-hold.

At the same time there was dissatisfaction among teachers in the school
system and I regularly received resumes from disaffected teachers who
wanted to work in this new utopia of management tarining

Resort companies focussed on the business and training sector in their
promotional activity. A surprising number of venue owners joined Training
organisations to network for the new source of funds. Expenses on travel
and accommodation were included in the eligible expenditure.

My Yellow pages listing generated a large number of calls towards the end
of the tax year from people who wanted $3,500 worth of training - no needs
analysis, other than a tax one.

Some corporate trainers reported executive pressure to reduce their higher
budget to the mandated level.

Fortunately all of my client companies continued to spend well in excess
of the mandatory level and continue to prosper.

I am not too sure that many Australian trainers would support a return to
the mandatory system.

--
If you're not having fun, then maybe you are not doing it right
or maybe you are just doing the wrong thing.

John Sleigh, head joker Making Learning Fun PO Box 1059 Potts Point NSW 2011 AUSTRALIA jsleigh@mail.enternet.com.au