Over 500 sign accountant's petition against CGT, discretionary trust tax changes

“I had so many people, particularly in my profession, saying ‘it's just going to happen, so don't waste your energy’, but I just couldn't [sic] sit there and not at least act and do something. Even if that meant that [this] ‘something’ led to nothing, I still wanted to know that, at least that I  wasn't sitting with my hands doing nothing at all,” she added.

The petition, EN10049, which is currently on the Parliament of Australia’s website, currently has over 500 signatures, surpassing the 50 required before it is referred to a minister for a response.

In the petition, Bamford wrote that the measures will disproportionately burden select members of society, disincentivise entrepreneurship, create unrealistic and disproportionate administrative complexity and compliance on small businesses compared to the revenue benefit. 

“Affected communities and professional bodies, including the accounting profession, have not been adequately consulted,” she added in the petition. 

The petition seeks not only for the House of Representatives to reject the changes, but to engage in genuine consultation with “small businesses, tax agents, accountants, and relevant professional associations before any legislative action proceeds,” the petition read.

“A comprehensive review with genuine industry consultation must occur before any legislation proceeds,” Eddie Griffith, chairperson for the Affiliation for Business Resilience and Turnaround, said.

“Accountants are the first to see the real-world consequences of changes like these, and their voice in this debate is essential,” he said.

Griffith added that the impacts of the CGT and discretionary trust changes will be “felt most dramatically by small and medium businesses and family group owners who built their enterprises over decades, planned their retirement around the CGT concessions, and structured their affairs through discretionary trusts for entirely legitimate reasons”.

“We are seeing small business owners and their advisers, many who wouldn’t typically publicly engage in policy debate, speaking out, through petitions like this one, and also through letters to MPs and Senators and social media channels,” Skye Cappuccio, chief executive of COSBOA, told Accountants Daily.

Cappuccio added that the petition revealed the level of concern regarding the impacts of the CGT and trust tax changes on established businesses and entrepreneurs to start and grow a business.

“Petitioning the House continues to offer Australians the opportunity to engage directly with the Parliament about matters of concern to them,” an infosheet on the website read.

Bamford told Accountants Daily that she aims to get the petition tabled in parliament.