CA ANZ welcomes bipartisan support to stamp out financial abuse
CA ANZ has welcomed the Coalition’s pledge to strengthen measures to detect and stamp out financial abuse within the tax system.
Earlier this week, Labor announced new commitments to crack down on financial abuse within the tax system following a review into financial abuse in the tax system by the Inspector-General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman.
On Thursday, the Coalition announced a $90m package that included a suite of measures to combat domestic violence, including financial abuse perpetrated through the tax system.
“Today’s announcement by the Coalition shows the Australian community that tackling financial abuse is important to both sides of politics and we’ll work with whoever is in government to ensure that any changes that are rolled out deliver the promises being made to victim-survivors and their families,” Ainslie van Onselen, chief executive of CA ANZ, said.
“We’ve been educating our members to identify signs of financial abuse because they’re in a unique position to recognise when people are being targeted by their intimate partner,” she added.
“But we can see that more needs to be done to prevent this abuse before it can even start.”
The IGTO review found that financial abuse and coercion could lead victims to accumulate large tax debts without their knowledge. Once these debts were accrued, there were few options for the ATO to clear them or transfer the debts to the perpetrator of financial abuse.
IGTO also found that ATO officers did not receive adequate training to identify and support victim-survivors of financial abuse.
Both major parties have now proposed measures to address financial abuse within the taxation system.
In a statement on Thursday, Peter Dutton said: “[An elected Coalition government would] strengthen Commonwealth taxation, welfare and superannuation systems where practicable to eradicate financial abuse, coercive control and unfair outcomes following family and domestic violence.”
Labor shared a similar statement on Tuesday: “A re-elected Labor government will take steps to … prevent perpetrators from using the tax and corporate systems to create debts as a form of coercive control and make perpetrators accountable for these debts if they do.”
With bipartisan commitments to fight financial abuse, CA ANZ said that legal frameworks could be improved to support domestic violence survivors who experienced financial abuse through the taxation system.
“A proposal to close loopholes in relation to debts incurred through no fault of the victim-survivor and preventing access to a victim’s superannuation payout by their perpetrator, would be important steps forward to ending such exploitation,” Onselen said.
“With a bipartisan commitment this week, we look forward to working with the next government to implement changes in this important area.”
