Tackling fraud and financial abuse

Give feedback on how:

• best to give the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) new powers to deal with fraud

• the ATO and the Department of Social Services could address financial abuse.

Proposals

New ATO powers

New powers will help the ATO to:

• collect debts from tax agents who commit fraud

• pause or cancel debts for taxpayers who are victims of fraud by tax agents

• issue garnishee notices to collect tax debts from jointly-held assets, with safeguards.

Your feedback will inform the design of the law for these new powers.

Addressing financial abuse

We could adapt these powers to collect a victim-survivor’s tax debt from a financial abuse perpetrator in certain situations.

There may be other ways to give victim-survivors relief and address financial abuse through the tax and social security systems.

Your feedback will inform any future government decisions.