Accounting body seeks 10% red tape cut by 2030
Complying with Australia's tax system costs taxpayers around $60 billion a year, and business owners are footing more than half the bill, according to analysis released by CPA Australia.
Businesses with turnover under $100 million account for about $31 billion of that cost, equal to 1.1% of GDP, the report shows. Individuals carry around $16 billion and large corporate groups about $10 billion. The goods and services tax (GST) is now the most time-consuming tax for smaller firms, the report adds.
"Tax compliance is costing Australia around $60 billion a year. That is not a tax bill. It is the cost of navigating the system," said Jenny Wong (pictured), tax lead at CPA Australia.
Why it matters for self-employed borrowers
"The smallest businesses carry the heaviest compliance burden," Wong said, noting that owners often handle the paperwork themselves rather than relying on specialist teams.
That point will resonate with self-employed brokers, and with business-owner clients whose tax returns and business activity statements underpin their borrowing capacity assessments.
Those records also shape where business owners turn for advice. Research released by Bluestone Home Loans found 62% of self-employed borrowers paid a professional adviser in the past year, yet only 10% of those surveyed said they had gone to a mortgage broker for help, with many leaning on accountants and bookkeepers instead.
How the $60 billion estimate was built
CPA Australia's headline figure sits within an estimated range of $54 billion to $70 billion. It is built on University of New South Wales (UNSW) surveys covering 2011–12, updated to 2024–25 using the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Wage Price Index and Australian Taxation Office (ATO) taxpayer data. The last official estimate is 14 years old, and its method was never published.
"You cannot cut what you do not measure," Wong said.
The body estimates taxpayers spend about $13 complying for every dollar government spends running the system. It also expects artificial intelligence could trim costs by about 6% by 2030, though this is an illustrative scenario rather than a measurement. It warns that adviser fees are unlikely to fall.
Quick wins proposed for the next budget
Rather than wait on technology, CPA Australia wants the federal government to commit to a 10% cut in compliance costs, or roughly $6 billion a year, by 2030. It also wants the government to act on several measures in the next federal budget.
These include simplifying fringe benefits tax by lifting the $300 minor benefits threshold to at least $500 and using Single Touch Payroll data to remove duplicated payroll reporting. The body also proposes indexing thresholds left unchanged for up to 20 years, such as the GST registration and small asset write-off limits.
CPA Australia says the changes would free up time for businesses at little cost to the budget. It is also urging the government to publish the Board of Taxation's Red Tape Reduction Review, which was delivered in June 2026 but whose findings and recommendations have not been made public.
The call comes after budget tax changes unsettled self-employed borrowers earlier this year.
