yea, not sure what the OP is referring to or what their personal circumstances are but that is definitely not as simple as that from personal experience (i left Australia for 10 months) along with first hand accounts of people I know.

Besides the obvious wife/kids being in Australia = personal ties, ATO also considers the following to be reasonable points to be constituted as a tax resident:

- Australian Bank accounts, even with $0.01 in it.

- Superannuation

- Properties owned, regardless if it is as an investments or owner-occupied (not rented out)

- Any Australian Account e.g. commsec, vanguard australia, telstra/optus mobile, etc

- Postal address/P.O. box

And so forth. ATO is purposefully applying broad strokes to "ties" to Australia so that they can claim their share of taxes accordingly.

I have a mate whom is a miner, working offshore for BHP, and was audited by the ATO since he lives in Indonesia (wife/family) thus claimed he is a non-tax resident. He is originally from WA so got dinged for a house he owns in WA (which he intended to come back to) + his (Telstra) mobile plan that he never used but paid the smallest plan to keep so that he didn't lose his aussie number + his NAB bank account that had $1000 in it so that he has some cash to spend when he visits family. ATO told him that if he wanted to be considered a non-tax resident, he had to liquidate _and_ close everything he has in Australia to be considered a non-tax resident. Since he didn't do so, they considered he has every intention to return to Australia thus place undue burden on medicare & pension system, if applicable, thus had to pay the difference in tax he paid in Indonesia vs. working in Australia.