'No escape' from advice costs of CGT changes, warns tax specialist

Speaking in a recent Accountants Daily live stream, Montani noted that in the initial first few months following 1 July 2027, there may be only a very minor change in the tax rate for most capital gains, as most of the gain will be from before 1 July 2027.

“However, it’s going to start creeping up, and for clients on a decent income, it’s eventually going to creep up to 47 per cent, bar the adjustment for inflation,” he said.

To prepare clients for the changes, Montani said accountants will need to analyse each client’s situation against the changes, make recommendations, and discuss them once there is something tangible to discuss.

“There’s going to be lots of costs involved, and there’s no escaping that,” he said.

“It’s not going to be a cheap exercise for a lot of clients. Of course once decisions are made, there’s the implementation, and there’s going to be further cost there.”

Montani said the trust tax changes, which impose a 30 per cent tax on certain discretionary trusts, will also add costs for clients, particularly if they need to restructure their business as a result.

Speaking in the same live stream, BusinessDEPOT director Rebecca Mihalic said for accounting firms thinking about how to price these services, they should start by identifying the services they’re going to provide and understand what they look like, the range of scenarios involved, the people that need to be involved and what it will cost the firm to provide those services.

“In the same way that we talk to any of our clients about pricing their own services or goods, [think about] what profit you want to make on those services as well because none of us really want to be breaking even or losing money on all of this work,” said Mihalic.

“We may have a bleeding heart when we’re thinking about our poor clients. We need to help them, but we also need to ensure that we’re maintaining viable businesses ourselves.

“So breaking down and understanding your cost of delivery is always really important with pricing.”

Mihalic also said it’s important to give clients different pricing options for how they move forward.

"It’s not just our fees that they’re going to incur depending on the situation. We could have stamp duty, extra taxes or a whole valuation cost. There’s a whole range of costs that’s going to be incurred by our clients over the coming year and [beyond].

“The more information we can give them about [those costs], the more comfortable they’ll actually feel to move forward and make the decisions they need.”