>>714135127
I do a fair bit of commissioning. I'm working with two artists at the moment.

One is a fairly famous Indonesian artist. I send him the specs and he sends me an invoice. I pay the invoice and put it in my tax records, so its like hiring a contractor.

My Australian artist has his own ABN (Australian Business Number), so he invoices me and I pay those, which counts as sub-contracting.

You don't need to employ someone full-time. I've done this in the past and it's a real pain in the ass. Just tell them to invoice.