2026 Budget: The Big Changes Editor: The Federal Government handed down the Federal Budget on 12 May 2026, with some of the biggest changes to the tax system in years. Some of the main proposed changes include: Delivering a new Working Australians Tax Offset (‘WATO’) to provide a permanent annual $250 tax offset to all eligible Australian workers. This applies to eligible income earned from 1 July 2027 (i.e., from…  Read more

$20,000 instant asset write-off extended The Government recently passed legislation to extend the $20,000 instant asset write-off for small businesses by 12 months to 30 June 2026. Taxpayers should note that if their business has an aggregated annual turnover of less than $10 million, they may be able to use the instant asset write-off (‘IAWO’) to immediately deduct the business portion of the cost of eligible assets which cost less…  Read more

ATO to include tax ‘debts on hold’ in taxpayer account balances From August 2025, the ATO is progressively including ‘debts on hold’ in relevant taxpayer ATO account balances. A ‘debt on hold’ is an outstanding tax debt where the ATO has previously paused debt collection actions.  Tax debts will generally be placed on hold where the ATO decides it is not cost effective to collect the debt at the time. …  Read more