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Pauline Hanson and Allegra Spender have made a rare joint call for the Australian Taxation Office to reverse its plan to ban credit card payments for tax bills, as Industry Minister Tim Ayres defends the decision and social media anger grows.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and teal MP Allegra Spender have made a rare unified demand for the Australian Taxation Office to reverse its plan to ban the use of credit cards for paying tax bills.
Labor defends tax credit card ban
The joint call follows the ATO's announcement that it will stop accepting credit card transactions from November 30. The tax office said in a statement that as a government agency it would not be appropriate for the cost of credit card merchant fees to be transferred to the community. Industry Minister Tim Ayres on Friday defended the move, blaming profiteering credit card companies for forcing the ATO's hand.
He said the card companies charge too much, and that cost ultimately falls on taxpayers because the ATO has to pay it. Ayres told News24 it is a charge on Australian taxpayers and not the right thing to do. He said there are alternative ways of paying and the ATO will work through those options with customers and stakeholders. He spoke amid growing anger on social media over Labor's ban on card surcharges.
RBA bans merchant surcharges
The Reserve Bank of Australia on Thursday banned surcharges for Mastercard, Visa and Eftpos networks, after a campaign from Labor that the government said would save consumers 1.6 billion dollars a year. As of October 1, merchants can no longer charge additional fees at checkout. Small business operators say they will be forced to pass along the charges to consumers in the upfront cost of goods and services.
The RBA argues that transferring charges to product pricing will inflate costs by around 0.1 per cent. The tax office said only 2.3 per cent of tax payments were made with credit cards in the 2024-25 financial year. It said 60 per cent of those charges were made by large organisations. Spender on Friday called for the decision to be reversed, saying the ATO was acting hypocritically.
Spender and Hanson call for reversal
She told Nine's Today show that she hears from small business owners in her community all the time and that cash flow is particularly hard to manage. She said this is where the ATO should reverse the decision. Her comments were echoed by Hanson. Hanson described the move as an unintended consequence because Labor never thinks anything through.
She joined calls from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the decision's reversal. Hanson said businesses are expected to absorb these fees, while the ATO avoids them by withdrawing credit card payments. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the government was insensitive and sought to blame the decision on a lack of business experience among Labor MPs.
He said that on the day Labor imposed these surcharges on small businesses, the ATO decided it would not take credit card payments because it does not want the surcharges. Taylor said seriously, you could not make it up. Several social media posts have gone viral accusing the government of inadvertently inflating the price of products. Some posts comically depict business owners rolling merchant fees into the base cost of products. The campaign against the ATO ban continues to grow.
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smh:Hanson and Spender united in demand for tax office ban reversal 
theage:Hanson and Spender united in demand for tax office ban reversalThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Allegra Spender Australian Taxation Office Credit Card Surcharge Ban Small Business ATO Credit Card Ban Card Surcharge Ban Tim Ayres
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