Treasury is seeking feedback on how best to give the ATO powers to deal with fraud and address financial abuse, as the government tabled its response to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services inquiry into financial abuse, supporting, or supporting in principle 58 of its 61 recommendations.
Government supports most parliamentary committee recommendations in principle
The Government has tabled its response to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services inquiry into financial abuse supporting, or supporting in principle, 58 of its 61 recommendations. Accordingly, a consultation paper has been released on reforms to take action against perpetrators of financial abuse as outlined below.
In addition, the committee report included recommendations directed at the financial services sector. In this regard, the government is working closely with industry to improve responses to financial abuse and support the adoption of leading practices across the financial system. In particular, the Assistant Treasurer will host a series of roundtables in Sydney in October with regulators, financial services peak bodies, professional associations, victim-survivor advocates, financial counsellors and legal clinics to discuss the path forward.
Combating fraud in the tax system
Part 1 of the consultation paper seeks feedback on the 2026–27 Federal Budget measures to strengthen the ATO’s ability to prevent, detect and respond to fraud against the taxation system by:
- • recovering tax debts in certain circumstances from tax intermediaries who commit fraud, and pause and waive debts of innocent taxpayers who are victims of tax intermediary fraud, and
- • extending the ATO’s garnishee notice powers to include jointly held assets, with safeguards.
Recent ATO reforms and measures, including funding for the counter fraud strategy measure introduced in the 2024–25 Federal Budget, will continue to assist the ATO with addressing fraudulent behaviour. This consultation paper is a step in equipping the ATO with additional tools to assist in managing emerging behaviours of concern perpetrated by both taxpayers and tax intermediaries.
Strengthening responses to financial abuse
Part 2 of the consultation paper seeks views on further opportunities to address serious actionable misconduct against victim-survivors of financial abuse perpetrated through the tax, superannuation, social security, family payment and child support systems. It also explores some other policy options for combatting weaponisation of these systems to perpetrate financial abuse.
In 2024, the Government commenced an audit of key Commonwealth systems to identify where they are being weaponised by perpetrators of family and domestic violence and to stamp out opportunities for systems abuse. In April 2025, the Government made a commitment to women to embed safety in Commonwealth systems and close financial abuse loopholes. This included taking 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, and looking at making perpetrators liable for social security debts incurred by a victim-survivor due to coercion or financial abuse.
The present consultation seeks views on whether additional legislative reforms may be warranted to better address financial abuse perpetrated through the tax system. This includes considering whether there should be mechanisms to provide relief from tax debts that arise as a result of fraud or dishonesty in the context of financial abuse and coercion, and how any such measures could be designed to enable support for victim-survivors alongside ensuring taxpayer fairness and the integrity of the tax system.
The closing date for comments is 27 November 2026.
Source: Assistant Treasurer and Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, Albanese government advancing reforms to combat financial abuse [joint media release], 14 October 2026, Treasury, Tackling fraud and financial abuse, 14 October 2026 and Treasury, Australian Government Response to the Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services Report on Financial Abuse: An Insidious Form of Domestic Violence, Parliament of Australia website, 14 October 2026, accessed 14 October 2026.
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