Angus Taylor declares ATO can absorb costs of credit card surcharge ban, flames PM over position on issue

Opposition leader Angus Taylor has accused the Australian Taxation Office of having sufficient resources to absorb the cost of the government’s credit card surcharge ban, declaring the agency should not impose a ban.

The dispute escalated on Friday when Jim Chalmers announced the government would cover the costs associated with the surcharge ban for the ATO, allowing taxpayers to continue making payments to the agency by credit card until July next year.

But on Sunday, Taylor criticised the ATO’s decision to move away from accepting credit cards, arguing the agency had received significant additional funding while small businesses were being left to shoulder rising costs.

“The ATO has had massive increase in resources, over $300 million in their budget. ASL, their people, bureaucrats, they have a lot of resources,” the Opposition leader told ABC’s Insiders.

“Small businesses in this country aren’t getting that kind of additional resourcing. They are not getting support from Government. I think the ATO can work out how to deal with this.”

Mr Taylor also launched an attack on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese over his position that small businesses should bear the costs of the surcharge ban.

“Here is Albanese out there this week saying small businesses have to absorb it, meanwhile he is crashing them, 30 failures a day,” he added.

“The guy has got rocks in his head, seriously. So the ATO can absorb this.

“It is an absolute disgrace that the very day that the Prime Minister was out there saying small businesses would absorb this, the ATO said they would ban credit cards because they can’t absorb.”