Public servants working for the Australian Taxation Office in regional Australia will be offered $10,000 to sweeten their move to big cities.
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Taxation bosses will put the cash on the table to soften the blow of the closure of eight offices in regional towns in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
The offer is a big improvement on the pre-tax $1000 per employee to leave their lives in the regions and move to one of Taxation's big city offices and unions are urging their members to take it.
Regional ATO offices in Sale, Bendigo, Orange, Grafton, Port Macquarie, Cairns, Mackay, Rockhampton and Toowoomba will close at the end of October with only the Launceston office being spared the axe.
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An ATO spokeswoman said that times had changed since the year 2000 when the "regional tax assistance program" offices had been a vital resource for small and medium-sized businesses struggling with their new obligations under the GST.
"In 2000, RTAP's focus was face-to-face assistance to support small business during the introduction of GST, but the need for a physical regional presence to provide information and education services has diminished over time," she said.
"Small business and the community increasingly want the flexibility of online services. We are now working to provide 24/7 assistance through online services such as the small business assist app and after-hours call-back service."
Some of the regional taxation officials have secured jobs at Medicare or Centrelink offices in their towns while 16 have accepted golden handshakes but about 55 remained in limbo.
"All affected employees are entitled to a redundancy," she said.
"We are actively working to seek redeployment opportunities for these people inside the ATO and within other APS agencies across a range of sites.
"So far, 23 affected employees have been redeployed to another ATO site or have been made offers from one or more APS agencies."
But public sector union the CPSU said the $10,000 offer was a good one for the remaining public servants who would be moving hundreds of kilometres just to keep their jobs.
"Ongoing detailed discussions between the CPSU and the ATO have led to a good solution for staff affected by the closures of RTAP sites," the CPSU told its members in a bulletin.
"The ATO is proposing to meet relocation expenses up to the value of $10,000 for staff moving from regional sites to major ATO offices, consistent with your enterprise agreement.
"This is a significant improvement on the one-off payment, of either $731 or $1101 before tax, previously on offer."
