Accountants a ‘punching bag’ with lack of indexed bracket creep

“It’s complicating things because we're trying to give taxpayers a fair go [to] plan their taxes so they can further invest in their goals. For example, business growth, investment growth or … trying to look after a family,” Mach said.

“It's just making it harder because this increasing tax bracket creep results in people paying more taxes, cost of living pressure, and then accountants become more of a therapist, because they have to deal with all these constant increases in cost of living, including taxes, and then, as a result, businesses [and taxpayers] are not doing well.”

Mach noted that small businesses, however, are more impacted by bracket creep than individual taxpayers. 

“It's not just income tax that doesn't get indexed for inflation or wage growth; it's payroll tax, land tax, GST. There [are] all these different taxes that don't get indexed, so [small businesses] get [fully] hit [with] all the taxes they have to pay … They applied indexation on CGT, which resulted in [Treasury] getting more taxes, because they got rid of the CGT discount; then why not [apply] indexation on all tax brackets?”

“What everyone's asking is, ‘will [you] do it for everything and apply the indexation on the tax brackets as well’, which is fairer — they have stayed silent on this.”

“That's where [accountants have] become a bit of a punching bag, and this is where a lot of accountants are saying that they are tired and fed up with the government for not really helping and giving proper tax relief.”