The Federal Government has flagged it will reach some sort of compromise on the backpacker tax saga that has had farmers across the country worried they won’t be able to get in a lot of this years harvest.Federal Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, Senator for Western Australia, is the deputy leader for the government in the Senate, which is where the legislation to change the tax backpackers pay is gridlocked.Traditionally, backpackers working in regional areas are paid under the regular PAYE tax schedule which means that many of them paid no tax at all. Then in the 2015 federal budget, the government announced it would impose a 32.5 cents on every dollar backpackers earn.It was a bolt from the blue for many growers, with backpackers making up a quarter of the nation’s seasonal agricultural workforce.After three government reviews and a grower survey found widespread concern about the impact of …
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