On 24 September 2025, the Australian Government announced the Board of Taxation will review ways to reduce red tape in the tax system.

Background

The government is interested in ways to reduce red tape in the tax system. Reducing red tape will help ease the compliance burden on businesses. It will also make our economy more productive.

As part of the Economic Reform Roundtable process, the Treasurer wrote to Commonwealth regulators. The Treasurer asked for actions each regulator could implement to reduce compliance burdens to support productivity.

The Commissioner of Taxation responded to the Treasurer’s request. Along with other things, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will develop a compliance cost framework. This framework will help the ATO understand how regulation and compliance impact taxpayers.

Terms of reference

To complement and support the ATO’s work, the Board of Taxation is requested to:

  • engage with the business community to identify areas of business tax law and administration where there are opportunities for red tape reduction that are substantial, material, measurable and directly support productivity.
  • Where opportunities are identified:
    • If involving administrative changes, provide the examples to the ATO to support their red tape work, including indicating the benefits that may be possible from reducing compliance costs; and
    • If involving legislative changes, provide recommendations to government for potential improvements. Any recommended improvements should consider the benefits to productivity, be revenue neutral and consider any potential integrity risks.

As part of the review, the Board will stocktake any tax-related compliance and red tape reduction recommendations from the Economic Reform Roundtable public submissions, as well as previous Board reviews and recent stakeholder engagement by the Board which discussed tax compliance burden.

The review team

The Board of Taxation has appointed the following Board Members to oversee the review:

  • Andrew Mills (Acting Chair)
  • Ian Kellock
  • Andrea Laing
  • Judy O’Connell.

They will be assisted by the board’s Secretariat function.

Consultation

The Board of Taxation will consult with a wide range of stakeholders.

Consultation will help the board understand where the impacts of compliance and regulation on business taxpayers could possibly be reduced through changes in business tax law and administration.

The Board of Taxation has prepared a consultation guide to explain the review process. The guide details the consultation process, how stakeholders can contribute and questions to consider.

The board is running consultation sessions on:

  • Thursday 13 November 2025
  • Friday 14 November 2025
  • Friday 21 November 2025

Stakeholders may also make a written submission to this review by 15 December 2025.

Further information is available here.

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