AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT KNEW OF PROPOSED TAX CARD BAN IN JULY

Australian assistant treasurer Daniel Mulino said he and treasurer Jim Chalmers knew in July that the Australian Taxation Office was considering a ban on credit card payments for tax bills. Mulino’s account places their knowledge more than two months before the government had previously acknowledged it. Chalmers told parliament last week that he learnt of the decision in late September, about a week before the ATO announced it. The government has since funded the ATO to delay the ban until July 2027 following objections from small businesses.

Mulino told ABC TV’s Insiders that the ATO had considered three options after the Reserve Bank announced in March that it would ban merchant fees on credit card transactions from 1 October. He said the ATO preferred to stop accepting credit cards. “In July, what we did was to insist that there be a transition period,” Mulino said. He said the ATO initially chose a two-month transition that coincided with its busiest period for tax submissions. Mulino said he and Chalmers also asked the ATO to continue negotiating lower fees with credit card companies.

Mulino said the ATO might have continued accepting credit cards if those negotiations had produced sufficiently low fees. He said the companies had not offered fees at that level, though he understood they had since improved their offer. The discussions continue, according to Mulino. He said accepting credit card payments indefinitely would have “very serious fiscal ramifications for the budget”. The opposition has pressed Chalmers over the government’s handling of the proposed ban.