Tax agents will no longer be able to call or write to the Tax Office to ask that a client’s tax penalties be waived following complaints the process is opaque and difficult to navigate.
From January 22, the Australian Taxation Office will only accept requests for remission of general interest charges, shortfall interest charges and failure to lodge penalties via specified new forms.
Tax agents can currently request remissions across a range of channels, including phone calls, messages or letters. However, a fall in remission request approvals in 2024-25 led to complaints about inconsistent decision-making.
The ATO calls the changes “an interim measure while we await the outcomes of our broader review of taxpayer relief provisions”.
“From 22 January 2026, we are amending the approach for registered agents, who will be required to download the new forms from ato.gov.au and submit them via practice mail in online services for agents,” an ATO spokeswoman said.
“Where agents do not have access to OSfA, information will be accepted over the phone to complete the form and then lodged on their behalf.”
The spokeswoman said the changes would increase consistency in decision-making “by directing remission requests to a specialist dedicated team” and provide clarity about when the ATO is “likely to accept or decline a remission request”.
She also warned the tax advisers they “may notice delays in our response time while we work through the rollout of our new process”.
Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen says the move is a “good first step” to improve transparency of the agency’s decision-making process.
“I welcome the ATO’s announcement to streamline GIC remission requests through an online form and dedicated team – a structured form will help agents and their clients put forward their request based on what the ATO needs to know in order to consider remission,” Owen says.
“I expect this will lead to timely and consistent GIC remission decisions.”
Owen says the changes will need to come with “clear guidance for agents to ensure that all relevant facts and evidence are provided and minimise the need for further information requests”.
“Last financial year, we received 134 complaints about GIC remission requests,” she says. “Many are about a general lack of consistency and transparency to the ATO’s GIC remission decisions – leading to perceptions that it’s really a matter of potluck who gets their interest reduced or remitted and who has to pay in full.”
Owen’s review of the ATO’s management of GIC remission will be completed early in the new year.
One tax agent, who didn’t want to be named because it might affect their relationship with the Tax Office, was unimpressed.
“It’s a tightening of the procedure, moving the process to forms. It’ll take more effort to fill out the forms and slow down the request process,” the agent says.
“Using forms means no human element. The ATO has removed the empathy from the request process.”
Tax boss denies PwC inquiries at risk after O’Neill moved from TPB
Taxation Commissioner Rob Heferen says moving the official who led a probe into PwC tax leaks to another regulator will not disrupt multiple inquiries into the big four firm.
Heferen told parliament that shifting former Tax Practitioners Board secretary Michael O’Neill to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission as a “specialist adviser” would not cause “any diminution” of the inquiries.
Greens senator Barbara Pocock asked during Senate estimates how the move would affect the PwC investigations, given O’Neill “has particular expertise and historical knowledge”.
Heferen said the Tax Practitioners Board remained capable.
“Indeed, the 200 staff, or 199 staff, are all tax officers as well … they have a lot of expertise as well. So I don’t think the movement of one person out of a role would necessarily result in any significant, in fact, any diminution of [the inquiries],” Heferen said.
On Monday, the TPB quietly updated its website to state senior tax official Andrew Orme would take over O’Neill’s role at the board from January. The appointment was not mentioned in a media release sent out on the same day about the TPB’s “compliance priorities”.
The decision to move O’Neill in November came after tax officials made
six attempts to sideline or sack him from the role while he led the agency’s broader investigation into PwC, despite opposition from the Australian Taxation Office. This included claims O’Neill was acting illegally in investigating PwC (claims strongly denied by O’Neill) and raising three unsubstantiated bullying claims.
Heferen, who was not commissioner when the earlier moves against O’Neill were made, said moving O’Neill was decided as part of the shift of eight senior officials into new roles.
The ATO boss said O’Neill would remain at the same rank, as one of the Tax Office’s senior band 2 officers, and that it was an ongoing position.
But Heferen declined to say if O’Neill had asked to stay on at the TPB until the PwC matters were concluded, citing “privacy reasons”.
Pocock asked for documentation relating to O’Neill’s move on notice. A similar October request to the TPB for “all written correspondence, briefing notes, memorandum, minutes of meetings and emails in the last six months relating to the performance of … O’Neill, and any proposal to move or replace him” remains unanswered.
Heferen said the former TPB head would be the “same seniority and level” at the charities’ regulator. But the “expressions of interest” email sent within the ATO last month downgraded the title to “secretary” from O’Neill’s title of “CEO secretary”.
The new PwC probes include assessing whether the firm’s advisers misused legal professional privilege to stymie probes into their conduct and allegations the firm misled the Foreign Investment Review Board over whether company restructures were done to cut tax bills.
TPB chairman Peter de Cure declined to provide any details about the investigations beyond saying he expected the probes to “conclude in the first half of 2026″.
ASIC’s policing of auditors only ‘partly effective’
The Australian National Audit Office has issued a lacklustre report card about the corporate regulator’s policing of company auditors.
The ANAO criticised the “small number of individual audit surveillances targeted at higher-risk entities” conducted by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the “limited follow-through of quality issues identified”.
“ASIC has not implemented procedures for using the audit deficiency reporting process established by legislation in 2012,” the ANAO said.
“As a result of these factors, ASIC’s visibility of audit quality or the impact of its own regulatory actions is narrow.”
The audit office made five recommendations, including that ASIC beef up its surveillance of registered auditors and improve its reporting of that surveillance. ASIC agreed to the recommendations.
Vote for the inaugural Readers’ Choice Eye-Roll award
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Professional moves
- The digital consultancy Future Friendly is reforming as an independent company after being sold to EY in 2023.
- Skye Cappuccio has been appointed the chief executive of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia. Cappuccio was previously the chief executive of Optometry Australia.
