Now lawMoney & Tax Introduced in the House of Representatives, 02 Jul 2026

Dodgy tax agents now face jail and bigger fines

This big tax law gives the watchdog for tax agents new powers after the PwC tax leaks scandal at a big accounting firm. It also widens the tax foreign investors pay when they sell Australian property. It tweaks the new rules on company takeovers and renames some charity giving funds.

Official name: Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026

Who it affects

• People who use a tax agent: The watchdog for tax agents has more ways to stop and punish agents who give bad or illegal advice.
• Registered tax agents, and BAS agents who help businesses with tax forms: They face much higher fines, on-the-spot fines, quick suspensions and bans of up to 10 years.
• People who do tax work for money without being registered: They can now be charged with a crime and sent to jail.
• Foreign investors in Australian land, water, roads and other big works: More of what they own is now taxed when they sell it at a profit.
• Foreign companies that own wind, solar and battery projects: They pay tax on only half their profit if they sell before 1 July 2030.
• Big businesses buying other businesses: A deal they forgot to report is no longer cancelled straight away. A court decides.
• Donors to five charities: Gifts to these groups can be taken off your taxed income.

PwC leaked secret tax plans

This bill bundles lots of changes that are not linked into one law. It has eight parts.

The biggest part deals with tax agents. These are people paid to do other people's tax.

In 2023, the public learned about a partner, or part-owner, at PwC, a big accounting firm. He shared secret government tax plans with workmates and clients. This became known as the PwC tax leaks scandal.

The Tax Practitioners Board is the agency that registers and watches over tax agents. It took action. But a 2019 review had already found a gap in its powers.

It could give a mild warning or take away a person's registration. There was little in between.

On 6 August 2023, the government promised a set of changes in response. This law is the third stage.

The rest of the bill changes tax for foreign investors, the rules for company takeovers and some charity rules.

Tougher rules for tax agents

Part 1 changes the main law on tax agents. Only registered agents may do tax returns for a fee. The same goes for the forms businesses use to report GST, the 10 per cent tax on most goods and services.

Until now, doing this work while not registered could only bring a fine set by a court. Now it is also a crime.

Charging for tax work, advertising tax services or pretending to be registered can bring up to 40 months in jail. It can also bring a fine of 200 penalty units, or both. A penalty unit is a fixed dollar amount used to set fines.

Lawyers who give tax help as part of their legal work are not caught by these new crimes.

Top fines go up a lot. For a person, they rise from 250 to 2,500 penalty units. For a company, they rise from 1,250 to 50,000 penalty units. That top amount also applies to very large global businesses.

Two new kinds of rule-breaking can now be fined. One is a person who is not registered saying something false or misleading.

The other is a registered agent breaking the code of conduct. That is the set of rules on right and wrong every agent must follow.

New tools for the watchdog

The board can now hand out on-the-spot fines that avoid a court case. They cover some breaks of the code. Examples are advertising tax services while not registered, or signing forms wrongly.

The board can also accept a written promise from an agent to fix a problem. A court can make the agent keep it.

The board can now suspend an agent until they fix a problem, such as a broken condition on their registration. Before, its main choice was to cancel the registration.

In urgent cases, the board can suspend an agent for up to 90 days before it has looked into the case. It must believe clients could lose money, or that the tax system is at serious risk. It can make the suspension longer once an investigation starts.

If the board cancels someone's registration, it can now ban them from applying again for up to 10 years. The limit used to be 5 years.

Say a bookkeeper loses their registration but keeps doing returns for cash from their kitchen table. Under this law, they could be charged with a crime.

More tax on foreign sellers

Capital gains tax is tax on the profit when you sell something for more than you paid. People who live overseas only pay it on some Australian assets. Assets are things of value that someone owns. These are mostly land and things closely linked to land.

The rules started in 2006. They rely on the meaning of real property, which means land and things fixed to it.

The government's notes on the bill say some state laws changed what counts as real property. That cut the amount that could be taxed. It also treated similar assets differently from state to state.

Part 2 writes one national meaning of real property into tax law. It now clearly includes water rights, which are rights to take or use water.

It also includes some licences and contract rights to use land. Examples are rights to run toll roads, bridges, car parks, ports, data centres and pipelines.

There is also a change to a test on company value. It checks if a company's value mostly comes from Australian land. It used to look at one moment in time.

Now it looks back over 365 days. So an investor cannot dodge it by shuffling assets just before a sale.

Say a foreign investor sells an asset worth $50 million or more that is not land. The buyer and seller may sign a form saying no tax needs to be held back. They now have to tell the head of the Australian Taxation Office, the tax office, about these big deals.

Profits on sales made before this part started keep the old rules. The tax office cannot reopen old tax bills that are past their normal time limit, except for fraud.

People who had already objected before 10 April 2026 keep their rights.

Tax break for renewable investors

Part 3 softens Part 2 for clean energy. Some foreign investors get a 50% discount on this tax when they sell Australian clean energy assets. These are investors that are not single people, such as overseas companies and funds.

This covers things that make power from sources that do not run out, such as wind and solar farms. It also covers batteries that store that power.

For shares in a company, at least 75% of the company's land-linked value must come from these assets.

The discount only applies to sales from when this part started up to 30 June 2030. The government says it wants to keep foreign money flowing into clean energy while the wider rules settle in.

Takeover rule changes

Big takeovers and mergers are deals where one business buys or joins with another. Since 1 January 2026, they must be reported first to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. That is the competition and consumer watchdog. Deals cannot go ahead until it agrees.

Under the old version, a deal that should have been reported but was not was cancelled straight away by law. It was as if it never happened. That applied even if the mistake was innocent.

Part 4 changes this. A deal that was not reported is no longer cancelled by itself. The watchdog must ask the Federal Court, a national court, to cancel it.

The court must do so unless it thinks cancelling would be wrong. One example is if it would harm innocent people. The business can still be fined for going ahead without approval.

This part also makes clearer which small shareholdings, meaning part-ownership of a company, and side deals count as taking control of a company. Deals that do not give real control do not need to be reported.

Approved deals must normally be finished within 12 months. Now businesses can ask the watchdog for up to 6 more months, more than once, if there are fair reasons for delay.

Updated competition agreement

In 1995, the federal, state and territory governments signed deals to boost competition across the economy. On 29 November 2024, they signed a new one, the 2024 National Competition Policy Agreement.

Part 5 updates two laws so they point to the 2024 deal. It also lets the minister name future deals in a legal notice. That way Parliament does not have to change the law each time.

The same goes for rules that stop government businesses getting an unfair edge over private firms.

Charity gifts and funds

Some charities are on a special list. If you give them money, you can take the gift off your taxed income. These are called deductible gift recipients. Part 6 adds three new ones.

The first is I4give Foundation Ltd, which runs programs on forgiveness and bouncing back. The second is Ross House Trust, which gives cheap office space to small community groups. The third is Tanarra Social Purpose Ltd, which gives free or cheap business advice to charities.

The Australian Academy of Law and Cambridge Australia Scholarships Limited stay on the list until 1 July 2031. Playgroup Queensland Ltd is listed under its new name, Play Matters Australia Ltd.

Part 7 renames ancillary funds. These are trusts, funds held and run for others, that collect gifts people can claim on tax. They pass the money on to charities.

They become public giving funds and private giving funds. The Productivity Commission is the government's research body on the economy. It said the word ancillary made them sound unimportant. Nothing else about the funds changes.

Refund fix for foreign sellers

Say someone buys property from a person who lives overseas. The buyer must hold back 15% of the price and send it to the tax office. The seller then claims it back as a tax credit.

Say a contract is signed in June but settles in July. A sale settles when it is finished and the money is paid. The sale and the payment fall in different tax years. The seller could need to file two tax returns to get their money back.

Part 8 lets the seller claim the credit in the same year the sale counts for tax. The tax office already did this under a short-term rule due to end on 1 October 2027. Now it is in the law itself.

Start date

The Assistant Treasurer, Dr Daniel Mulino, is a junior minister for the economy. He put the bill to the House of Representatives, the larger house of Parliament, on 2 July 2026. The House passed it on 20 August 2026 with one government change.

The Senate, the second house of Parliament, passed it on 10 September 2026.

The Governor-General, the King's stand-in, signed it into law on 15 September 2026. It became Act No. 86 of 2026.

Parts 4 and 5 started the next day. The other parts start on the first 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October after that. That is 1 October 2026.

How they voted

Its journey through Parliament

Official sources

• Bill page on aph.gov.au
• Text of the bill
• Explanatory memorandum
• Bills Digest

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