Sham contracting?

[leoboy]

Hi,

I have been contracting to a Telstra centre for the past 5 years throughout that time they asked me to register a company and employ my own sales staff but representing myself as their brand and name. We have always used their tools of trade, email addresses and represented ourselves as this company.
A contractor of mine said what he is doing for me is sham contracting, so I am curious, does that mean what my business is doing for them also sham contracting?

 

[Rod]

Quite likely. A lawyer would need to review the paperwork and circumstances before giving advise.

 

[Tim W]

Hard to tell with so little information.
What kind of work?
Several reason to ask... for example, a retail mobile phone store operating as an agency (or even as a franchise) might not be;
genuinely sub-contracting technical "white van" work, direct to Telstra, might not be;
but anything involving, say, sub-subbing, or in some way "working on an ABN", might be.
You requiring your staff to have ABNs, will, as @Rod says above, quite likely be.