April 29, 2025 • 31 mins
When it comes to tax affairs, it's never easy: Many investors believe they do not get a fair deal: But some people clearly suffer financial abuse (which often begins with how a partner has behaved in the past). Sometimes too, the issues don't fit neatly for a financial adviser or a financial counsellor: That’s where the Tax Clinic, an experiment at UNSW, fills the gap.
Ann Kayis-Kumar of the Tax Clinic at UNSW joins Associate Editor - Wealth, James Kirby in this episode.
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In today's episode, we cover
- How to spot financial abuse
- Planned legal changes that could make a difference
- The short straw of being a secondary credit card holder
- Tax pitfalls and financial literacy
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hello and welcome to the Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm
James Kirby. Welcome aboard everybody. It's amazing how one thing
leads to another. Our last episode a very interesting chat
you might recall with Nathan Fradley. He was a financial advisor,
but he's also a specialist in divorce. If you miss
that episode, catch up because it's very good. It's about
(00:30):
how to divorce, the best way forward for both parties
in a divorce from a financial perspective. But a key
issue that emerged in that podcast was this concept of
financial abuse right very typically, For instance, in some divorce situations,
people will hide money. They may hide money in conventional
(00:51):
bank accounts. More recently they may hide money in crypto.
There's issues off often and always, of course, around property.
What's the best way to settle property? Not necessarily the
best thing to get the house. You would have thought
that would be automatically the case. Not so, says Nathan.
Also an issue that came up in that show was
(01:12):
people signing documents that they fail to understand, or perhaps
more typically, signing documents without inquiring what exactly the document entailed.
And this is why we so often see people left
high and dry by their partners, sometimes by their business partners.
My guest today is Anna cas Kumar, and she runs
(01:35):
the Tax Clinic tax and Business Advisory Clinic, which, if
you don't know what it is, it's an interesting Can
I call it an experiment? She'll tell me in a moment.
At the University of News that way is. Anna is
an associate professor there. How are you Anna?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Thank you so much for han me James, thank you,
And I think you have described it quite well. It's
very much an experimental design from a research and community
service perspective.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And I've bed several mistakes already, called you Anna, collection,
called you Anne, didn't check how I pronounced your surname properly?
How do I pronounce it?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
You're so kind? It's chaos kuma ks kuma.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay. So the tax Clinic, it sounds awfully interesting. We
all could use it, I'm sure, But tell me how
long you've been going and precisely what your product proposal
is and to whom.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yes, thank you for that. So we've started since twenty
nineteen helping people who are in severe of financial distress. So,
like you've mentioned in the past, with your guests, including
financial counselors. That cohort is the cohort that we serve,
and we've been doing that since our inception about five
six years ago. We also help people who've come to
(02:49):
us from other referral channels from the community sector, including
domestic violence Support Services Lifeline, and that really gives us
a unique window into a cohort that is falling through
the cracks.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And I'm going to guess now, but this isn't the
typical customer at a financial counselor's door. It's probably a
bit more complicated. I expect it's probably people who had
to go at a business in one way or another.
Is that? Could you tell us a little bit more
about the people on your books?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Basically, that's absolutely right. So most of our clients are
small business, particularly the micro business end of small business,
and that's why they come to us often with quite
substantial tax debts and long term tax returns and bus
returns that have not been completed. As you can imagine
(03:48):
your listeners can imagine, We know that a lot of
new businesses struggle to survive past five year mark, and unfortunately,
with our client base. To give your listeners a bit
of context. On average, our outstanding tax debt amount is
over eighty thousand dollars, so that's just tax debt, so
(04:08):
that's not other debts as well. And then on average
over seven years of outstanding income tax returns and over
five years of outstanding bas so for bas per year,
that's a lot of tax compliance that has fallen by
the wayside for a number of reasons, including mental health,
domestic violence, all the compounding factors and structural challenges that
(04:32):
small business can face.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
How do you select? How do I how do you select?
You get ten pieces of correspondence every morning telling people
on people saying I'm at terrible state, I don't know
where to go. How do you do it? How do
you select?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
We trianage by reference to urgency, for example, if the
and also the sense of working in true partnership with
our referral partners. And we've been doing that since that week,
since we started. And so where for example, financial b
service new Softwores, which is a state run financial abuse service,
comes to us and says, we have a client here
(05:05):
who has a director penalty notice at DPN that gives
the taxpayer twenty one days to pay the full amount
of the company liability that obviously gets triaged, escalated and prioritized,
but also the taxpayer has received urgent escalation letters from
the tax office that we know then that can lead
to firm action within triage and prioritize service.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Are you rushing to save these people from bankruptcy? Is
that what it comes to?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Really, I'm glad that you asked that, because bankruptcy is
one of the risks that our clients are facing into,
and that can be appropriate in some circumstances, but particularly
in the situations that our clients find themselves in, it
can have really perverse knock on effects. For example, you
(05:53):
mentioned financial abuse being one of the issues, and it's
certainly a hot topic of the moment. Really grateful that
both sides politics of bipartisan support for reforming the weaponization
the tax system by perpetrators into a partner violence. What
we're seeing is if the debts have been deliberately put
in the victim survivor's name as a further tactic of
(06:18):
financial abuse, then steamrolling into bankruptcy is the last thing
that person needs that might fall into because of a
lack of advice and support. That's really got awful short
term and medium long term consequences, including, for example, losing
(06:38):
standing and family court, which can result in that person
losing child customer.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah right, I had never actually extrapolated to that degree.
Tell me, while we're talking in the show about divorce,
one of the things that came up clearly was that Laura,
ultimately this comes under the umbrella of financial literacy. And
I'm on the board of EXTRA, the Financial Literacy Foundation,
and we've had the We've represented EXTRA on the show
(07:02):
many times because I think financial literacy is terribly important
the people that come to your door. I know that
invariably there's a traumatic backdop over and above standard business stresses.
But how important is that financial literacy? Is it that
(07:23):
people didn't understand the documents they were signing, the notices
from the tax office, that they didn't understand the severity
of them. Is that an aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
That's certainly one of the factors that we see. And
of course you've anticipated there's a spectrum of different circumstances
that someone can come to our clinic having experienced on
one had financial literacy is one of the threads that
connects all of our clients. But just because someone has
a higher sense of financial literacy, it doesn't make them
(07:57):
immune to financial abuse. And that's the really insidious part
of it. We see people who have held really technical positions,
CEOs of companies, medical professionals who have fallen victim to
financial abuse, and so that's one of the really challenging
pieces around identifying those particular.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
When you sit across those people, you know that they
are competent, they are credentialed in some area. So what
happened that led to them being in your office.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
In circumstances of financial control? In particular, there is and
this is an area of literature that is well beyond
my core expertise. But what we do know is that
one of the dynamics at play is power and control.
And your listeners might be aware of the term coercive control.
(08:55):
So a sense of that power dynamic, which to an
extent would stem from social norms, something as innocent as
saying I'll run the business. All you need to do
is sign XYZ doctor let me look after it. And
it does present a bit of a slippery slope. And
really something distressed as well with your listeners is this
(09:17):
is a relatively small cohort. So we know that it
affects sixteen percent of Australian women and eight percent of
Australian men according to ABS data from about four years ago.
But that is a significant cohort. When you add it all,
we're talking two point four million Australians.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Okay, and it's twice put very wrong numbers on it.
The issue is twice as prevalent among women than.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Men statistically speaking.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yes, okay, very very interesting. I've got to hold it
right there. We're going to take a break and we're
going to come back and do a closer dive on
this back in a moment. Talks. Hello, Welcome back to
(10:05):
The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby from The
Australian and I am talking to an kus Kumar from
the Tax Clinic. The Tax Clinic is at the University
of New South Wales and it's Newish. It's not perhaps
very well known in the broader investment audience, but they're
doing some fascinating work and I think it gives us
(10:26):
a really interesting insight into the world. We talk on
the show mostly about how to understand investing and how
to succeed in investing. Not everybody does just, and businesses
roll over, and investors get into all sorts of trouble,
and people at all levers get into all sorts of
trouble financially. And there is if you can't pay for
(10:49):
a financial advisor being five five hundred a year, it's
after that where do you go. There's financial counselors, but
they really only want to deal with people who are
are in desperate straits and difficulties financially. What about people
who had a business who were making a goal of
things and it went after rails And this is the
(11:09):
sort of layer and if I'm if I've got it right,
this is the layer of where you come in. Can
you tell me what rule has divorce got in your files?
If you like?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
We definitely find that amongst our coport of clients, the
incidence of financial abuse is a very strong undercurrent, and
from the literature we also know that is quite common
as a post separation event. So with all of the
other forms of abuse increasingly falling out of reach of perpetrators,
(11:42):
financial abuse often rams up, or even if there was
no domestic violence, the opportunity for financial abuse post separation
then presents a catalyst for that following a brilliant breakdown.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yes, of course, is it new. It's just we call
the financial abuse. But is it new? Is there anything
change interested there from? Has it always been there? Are
there particular trends that are new and so more urgent.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
There's definitely been an increased awareness over the last few
decades the financial abuse is a subset of domestic violence,
but in terms of the overall public perception that is
still in progress. In terms of shifting the dial awareness
an understanding that domestic violence isn't just the physical forms
(12:33):
but very much the financial forms, and quite chillingly, typically
it takes a bignoms survivor about seven attempts to escape
a relationship, and it's a lack of economic security, financial
security that can draw them back to a perpetrator.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yes, yeah, and what are the flash points? Obviously one
is separation and post separation, but generally a got are
the flash points for you in this area?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
That's certainly the situation that we see with our client base.
From the literature more broadly, we know that key milestones
like having a child are also one of those circumstances,
and that goes back to the dynamic of power and control.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
What about when businesses go sour.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
The business and relationship breakdown unfortunately, of both markers of
financial vulnerability and financial distress. And when we zoom out
and look at the other literatures beyond the tax space,
which is my Baily wig. But in conversations that I've
had with researchers in the medical space, for example, in
mental health research, it's quite well established that financial distress
(13:47):
and mental health go hand in hand. And similarly in
the gender space or the gender violence space, financial distress
and financial abuse go hand in hand. There's a bit
of a vendor diagram here where they all intersect.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Is there any evidence that financial success and financial wellbeing
go hand in hand?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
That's a great question. Financial well being is certainly an
area that is looked at in the banks have done
some amazing work in the center of social impact to
one of the it's complicated to define, but one of
the pieces is around a social capital piece that goes
to that point. I think you're raising as well, James.
But it's certainly a complicated space when you look at
(14:30):
the opposite end of the spectrum with financial vulnerability and
all the things that can be indicators of a lack
of financial wellbeing.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Can I ask you just in the area of taxes,
it is a tax cliniqic it be worth people, it
would be worth knowing. And this is just strictly an
academic question as such in our tax system. A lot
of people on the show when they complain about the
fact that you must just if you get a tax
bill for whatever reason, like you must establish so it
get a bill for ten thousands and you say that
(15:00):
it shouldn't be ten thousand, it should be eight thousand,
but you must establish why it's not ten thousands. Is
that typical all around the world. People don't necessarily know
is that Western convention in.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Tax And that goes to a really interesting point, James,
and something that leads to a question around broader tax
payer rides. So we know in Australia, like you said,
we have effectively both a self assessment scheme over the
last couple of decades and a reverse onus of proof.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yes, reverse owners of proof. That's it, Yeah, beautifully put
academically sweetly termed yeah, reverse owners of proof, which would
be described in more furious terms by some people.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
But yeah, okay, indeed, indeed and this is something that
is a real challenge.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
But is it a global standard? Is that how it
works everywhere? Ah?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Well, we do know that the back in nineteen ninety
three there was a recommendation to reform that by government agency,
the Joint Commity of Public Accounts, And so this is
something that has been contested on and off since ninety three,
and it's something that is not necessarily Every system has
(16:09):
its own nuances and quirks. Where the rubber hits the
road is of course, in disputes, like you say, and
we don't have all of the mechanisms available compared to
some other jurisdictions like the US, but of course they
in turn have their own quirks. We do have a
taxpayer name died, we do have a taxpayer charter, but
(16:32):
we don't have a taxpayer bill of rights. So across
the patchwork we have a system where we know that
there is rule of law and there are tax dispute
resolution mechanisms. But in terms of the burden on taxpayers,
it is well established that disproportionately affects the lower end
(16:53):
of the tax paying spectrum because it's nearly impossible to
navigate all of this complexity without is that right?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Even know that? Okay? And in terms of from again,
many of our listeners have self managed super funds when
I'm guessing again, but I imagine the hotspot for you is couples.
You see, you pass a restaurant, there was a couple
in the restaurant. They seem to be going great. Next
thing you find out the businesses for sale. The couple
have broke up, the business has broken up. Often in
(17:21):
those cases there's also self managed super fund complications because
the self managed super funds which they both had owned
the business or owned the business premises or whatever. The
SMSF brigade as such, where where do they go? Can
you deal with them?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
There is a real risk of people in those situations
falling through the cracks because our service doesn't have enough
resourcing to meet all of the unmet need unfortunately. But
we are growing trend in the Australian landscape them Like
you said, James, we're relatively new across Australia. There's to
both side of politics, credit and growing awareness and understanding
(17:59):
that this scheme needs to be further supported. To the
National Tax Clinics program has about twenty tax clinics Australia wide.
But we really do need to have more funding so
that we can support a broader pool of people who
are all falling through the cracks, because, like you've said,
without the professional advice that you need to navigate complexity,
(18:20):
it's nearly impossible to do so.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Okay, So tell me from your experience so far in
this very interesting sort of coningage area. Really i'm sure academically,
what are your lessons that you would give to listeners
that they don't end up sitting opposite you in your clinic.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
There's three key things. One is, where possible, making sure
that cash flow is managed in a way that is
mindful of tax compliance obligations, because that's one of the
pitfalls that we do see, and that's easier said than done.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
They just keep pushing the tax dimension away.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And that goes to financial literacy and tax literacy like
you were saying before, but of course easier to bean
done where there are cash flow struggles. Then quarantining off
the GST is obviously a challenge. The second when it
comes to financial abuse, is being able to recognize the science,
(19:22):
not necessarily in your clients, but just more broadly as well.
So there are five key telltale signs or red flags
of financial abuse, particularly in tax situations. So one is
controlling access to money, so restricting access to bank accounts,
business income tax information. The second is hiding money, so
(19:45):
keeping finances secret and hiding income and assets. The third
is shifting debts, and we see that financial counselors have
been identifying that for a while. Now they call it
sexually transmitted debt. We've also identified a subcohoro sexually transmitted
tax stets. So that's the situations like the dPNs for example,
or taking out loans in the other person's name.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
What the dPNs, you might explain what that means? What
do you mean? Oh?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yes, So dPNs is the director penalty notices. It's those
situations where the company liability goes to the director and
where we have a sole director situation with a biglim survivor,
with the perpetrator being the shadow director. That then means
that the ATO by default has to go after the
one early director and.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
This would be a hotspot where people signed something and
didn't realize what they were signing precisely.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
And then fourth is making decisions, making financial decisions for
that other person, restricting their visibility around access to money
decision making. And then finally, the fifth one is having
inaccessible information, so business structures or financial arrangements the block
access to money.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Right, Okay, how's the arrival of cryptocurrency made this worse
or easier for the perpetuator.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
We haven't identified crypto specifically as a mechanism, but what
we do know is that business is the strong thread
through all of our matters where there is a financial
abuse element, and unfortunately that number itself has been growing.
So when we first started the clinic, it was about
sixty percent of our female clients self reporting financial abuse
(21:24):
and that was on trend year on year up until
last year where it ballooned to over eighty percent and
it's been at that level for the last two years.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Is that Does that imply that the majority of the
victims in these scenarios are female?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yes? Absolutely. What we see with our cohort is an
overrepresentation of women.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
And is it getting better or worse over the last
two years?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It has been markedly worse, even though our client intake
mechanism hasn't changed dramatically.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
And you're convinced that it has got worse rather than
the reporting has changed.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Because we used an internationally recognized screening scale rather than
just ask a yes no question, I am confident, so
we use the scale that I Can't Abuse Too, which
asks over a dozen questions that are more broad and
so it doesn't rely on awareness of the respondent to
the survey question.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, okay, very good. We'll be back in a moment.
Folk curated once more for and some issues that have
come up on the show and a very interesting question
from d Back in a moment. Hello, Welcome back to
the Australians Money Puzzled podcast. James Kirby here with Ann
(22:46):
ks Kumar from the Tax Clinic at the University of
New South Wales, which is a specialist unit dealing with
people who have complex tax problems where there has been
financial abuse. Is that almost that's mandatory? Is it that
you must prove the abuse? I expect you must before
you will deal with a client.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
That's such a great question because the of an injury
burden is a challenge that the ATO is facing into
now following the Tax Ombosman's recommendations. So we ran an
investigation of financial abuse and the tax system and made
some recommendations for both administrative and legislative reform. When it
(23:29):
comes to proving abuse, what we do is rely on
the experts rather than us trying to become a master
of all. We just focus on the tax space and
rely on the community expertise from financial abuse services and
domestic violence support services to do that triaging for us
(23:51):
in the majority instances.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
So no one comes to you directly. They are referred.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
We used to when we first started, a combination of
referrals from financial counselors and people who just found out
about us. But we have found that because we want
to only help the people who are in most need,
mindful that a lot of people might be struggling financially
(24:18):
but can still afford to pay for tax advice, we
don't want to be in that space where we even
risk having the optics of cannibalizing the profession, and so.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
We are serving the wrong people over people who were
more deserving. Precisely, it's all pro bono, I imagine. Yes, yes, okay,
very interesting, All right, now, I had a couple of issues,
but I've kept one really interesting question, and I had
been wondering how I would deal with this, who would
answer it? But you've come along so as perfect it's
from d I just read it. Many women who have
(24:52):
secondary who have been secondary credit cardholders on their partners account,
whether due to traditional household rules or lower income, find
themselves in a difficult financial position, whether their partner passes
away or our relationship ends. Despite years of responsible use,
they often struggle to obtain a credit card in their
own name because they have not built an independent credit history.
(25:16):
The issue particularly impacts older women, homemakers, and those who
work part time. Banks often do not recognize secondary card
holders as having a financial track record, leaving these people
financially vulnerable. Would you consider covering this, Yes, we're going
to cover it right now. So this is an issue
(25:37):
that how does it work if you have you get
a credit card as a couple and one's a secondary holders,
so you don't exist as far as the bank concern
is that it.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
What we've done from our conversations with clients and community
support services is that the primary secondary card holder piece
can be quite challenging to unpick, and that's one of
the reasons why a lot of experts in this space
suggest separate bank accounts and also shared if that is
what works for that particular couple, but certainly having separate
(26:10):
bank accounts is often noted as one of the strategies
that can be adopted more broadly, not just for the
track record form a credit history perspective, but just from
a control and access to money considering.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
It's just the basic fundamental independence of it.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yes, and that's not to say that's the silver believe,
but that is what is typically suggested.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yes, and without that, it is the case that if
you're a second credit card holder, even for years and years,
you don't have a credit history. So you walk into
the bank after twenty five years where your partner was
the primary card holder, and you say to the bank,
I want my own credit card and they say, we
don't know who you are. We have no credit history
(26:55):
of you.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
And while we haven't had as much bank king sector
related issues to manage because we only deal with the
tax piece, one of the things that Australian banks ought
to be very proud of is that we are global
leaders in the last four to five years, especially around
kind understanding of financial abuse, and so hopefully there might
(27:17):
be more opportunities for change in that space as well,
because the banking sector is quite ahead of the game.
When it comes to its approach to identify and supporting
people experiencing financial abuse.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Okay, very good, I see. So tell me if you
could wave a magic wand and there was one thing
your clinic and all the clinics around the country and
there obviously sounds something of a loose collection at the moment,
but if there was one thing that you'd like to
see happen, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Oh? I love the idea of being able to waive
a magic Wand how expansive can we get here? We're
very close to getting law reform, which hopefully won't even
require a magic one because of the bipartisan support to
change the tax laws around the weaponization of the tax system.
More broadly, what I would love to see is more
(28:08):
awareness around tax literacy, more understanding that once you get
an ABN, that comes with the knock on effect of
tax related compliance obligations, so that ideally we don't have
anyone needing.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Clinics like that don't really tell you what I can
get an ABN in two seconds. It doesn't They don't
really tell you. It's not really written a black and
white across the top. The obligations of that is.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
It exactly, and then the first time you might have
a touch point might be eighteen months down the track
and you may not have realized that there are all
of these tax compliance obligations.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
And just on that national law reform around abuse. If
it all comes to pass and falls into place, what
would happen that is not happening now A.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Number of things. So, like we're talking about, one of
the challenges is that the Tax Office right now has
its hands tied to an extent. Where there is financial abuse,
they still have to rely on the laws that they
have at their disposal. What we've been advocating for has
been US inspired innocent spouse relief, So where you can
(29:13):
prove abuse, the AHO can release the victims survivor from
that tax liability and instead opt to pursue the perpetrator.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Okay, I see, very good, Okay, and where's that at
an We now.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Have bipartisan support, which I'm really grateful for and please
to see. So both the AOP and the Coalition just
last week announced that as part of their election promises.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
So something that should hopefully come up in the next parliament.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
A bit look forward to seeing that change, all right.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
I will look out for that in my daily role.
All right, very good, Hey, thanks very much for coming
on the show. And ks Kumar from the Tax Clinic.
Very interesting work and best of luck with it.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Great to have you on, folks. That was and ks
Kumar the Tax Clinic interesting material. If you listen back
to some of the shows we've had financial counselors and
we had the Rob Burgesson who was a financial counselor
telling us what he does there, and it's really interesting.
There's different layers when things go wrong and if you
can't pay for financial advice, it's it's quite a drop
(30:20):
down to where you could be taken in if you like,
by a financial counselor, where they would deal with you. Interesting.
That strata where people have businesses that go off the
rails is the strata that the tax clinics are looking at.
And of course the whole issue of abuse so big
in that area. Hopefully they get that legislation through parliament. Okay,
(30:42):
keep those emails coming, please, I have some space to
answer some questions, so let's have them. The Money Puzzle
at the Australian dot com dot Au. Today's show was
produced by the Isama glue talk to you soon, show
the FO
Hello and welcome to the Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm
James Kirby. Welcome aboard everybody. It's amazing how one thing
leads to another. Our last episode a very interesting chat
you might recall with Nathan Fradley. He was a financial advisor,
but he's also a specialist in divorce. If you miss
that episode, catch up because it's very good. It's about
(00:30):
how to divorce, the best way forward for both parties
in a divorce from a financial perspective. But a key
issue that emerged in that podcast was this concept of
financial abuse right very typically, For instance, in some divorce situations,
people will hide money. They may hide money in conventional
(00:51):
bank accounts. More recently they may hide money in crypto.
There's issues off often and always, of course, around property.
What's the best way to settle property? Not necessarily the
best thing to get the house. You would have thought
that would be automatically the case. Not so, says Nathan.
Also an issue that came up in that show was
(01:12):
people signing documents that they fail to understand, or perhaps
more typically, signing documents without inquiring what exactly the document entailed.
And this is why we so often see people left
high and dry by their partners, sometimes by their business partners.
My guest today is Anna cas Kumar, and she runs
(01:35):
the Tax Clinic tax and Business Advisory Clinic, which, if
you don't know what it is, it's an interesting Can
I call it an experiment? She'll tell me in a moment.
At the University of News that way is. Anna is
an associate professor there. How are you Anna?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Thank you so much for han me James, thank you,
And I think you have described it quite well. It's
very much an experimental design from a research and community
service perspective.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And I've bed several mistakes already, called you Anna, collection,
called you Anne, didn't check how I pronounced your surname properly?
How do I pronounce it?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
You're so kind? It's chaos kuma ks kuma.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay. So the tax Clinic, it sounds awfully interesting. We
all could use it, I'm sure, But tell me how
long you've been going and precisely what your product proposal
is and to whom.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yes, thank you for that. So we've started since twenty
nineteen helping people who are in severe of financial distress. So,
like you've mentioned in the past, with your guests, including
financial counselors. That cohort is the cohort that we serve,
and we've been doing that since our inception about five
six years ago. We also help people who've come to
(02:49):
us from other referral channels from the community sector, including
domestic violence Support Services Lifeline, and that really gives us
a unique window into a cohort that is falling through
the cracks.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And I'm going to guess now, but this isn't the
typical customer at a financial counselor's door. It's probably a
bit more complicated. I expect it's probably people who had
to go at a business in one way or another.
Is that? Could you tell us a little bit more
about the people on your books?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Basically, that's absolutely right. So most of our clients are
small business, particularly the micro business end of small business,
and that's why they come to us often with quite
substantial tax debts and long term tax returns and bus
returns that have not been completed. As you can imagine
(03:48):
your listeners can imagine, We know that a lot of
new businesses struggle to survive past five year mark, and unfortunately,
with our client base. To give your listeners a bit
of context. On average, our outstanding tax debt amount is
over eighty thousand dollars, so that's just tax debt, so
(04:08):
that's not other debts as well. And then on average
over seven years of outstanding income tax returns and over
five years of outstanding bas so for bas per year,
that's a lot of tax compliance that has fallen by
the wayside for a number of reasons, including mental health,
domestic violence, all the compounding factors and structural challenges that
(04:32):
small business can face.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
How do you select? How do I how do you select?
You get ten pieces of correspondence every morning telling people
on people saying I'm at terrible state, I don't know
where to go. How do you do it? How do
you select?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
We trianage by reference to urgency, for example, if the
and also the sense of working in true partnership with
our referral partners. And we've been doing that since that week,
since we started. And so where for example, financial b
service new Softwores, which is a state run financial abuse service,
comes to us and says, we have a client here
(05:05):
who has a director penalty notice at DPN that gives
the taxpayer twenty one days to pay the full amount
of the company liability that obviously gets triaged, escalated and prioritized,
but also the taxpayer has received urgent escalation letters from
the tax office that we know then that can lead
to firm action within triage and prioritize service.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Are you rushing to save these people from bankruptcy? Is
that what it comes to?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Really, I'm glad that you asked that, because bankruptcy is
one of the risks that our clients are facing into,
and that can be appropriate in some circumstances, but particularly
in the situations that our clients find themselves in, it
can have really perverse knock on effects. For example, you
(05:53):
mentioned financial abuse being one of the issues, and it's
certainly a hot topic of the moment. Really grateful that
both sides politics of bipartisan support for reforming the weaponization
the tax system by perpetrators into a partner violence. What
we're seeing is if the debts have been deliberately put
in the victim survivor's name as a further tactic of
(06:18):
financial abuse, then steamrolling into bankruptcy is the last thing
that person needs that might fall into because of a
lack of advice and support. That's really got awful short
term and medium long term consequences, including, for example, losing
(06:38):
standing and family court, which can result in that person
losing child customer.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah right, I had never actually extrapolated to that degree.
Tell me, while we're talking in the show about divorce,
one of the things that came up clearly was that Laura,
ultimately this comes under the umbrella of financial literacy. And
I'm on the board of EXTRA, the Financial Literacy Foundation,
and we've had the We've represented EXTRA on the show
(07:02):
many times because I think financial literacy is terribly important
the people that come to your door. I know that
invariably there's a traumatic backdop over and above standard business stresses.
But how important is that financial literacy? Is it that
(07:23):
people didn't understand the documents they were signing, the notices
from the tax office, that they didn't understand the severity
of them. Is that an aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
That's certainly one of the factors that we see. And
of course you've anticipated there's a spectrum of different circumstances
that someone can come to our clinic having experienced on
one had financial literacy is one of the threads that
connects all of our clients. But just because someone has
a higher sense of financial literacy, it doesn't make them
(07:57):
immune to financial abuse. And that's the really insidious part
of it. We see people who have held really technical positions,
CEOs of companies, medical professionals who have fallen victim to
financial abuse, and so that's one of the really challenging
pieces around identifying those particular.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
When you sit across those people, you know that they
are competent, they are credentialed in some area. So what
happened that led to them being in your office.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
In circumstances of financial control? In particular, there is and
this is an area of literature that is well beyond
my core expertise. But what we do know is that
one of the dynamics at play is power and control.
And your listeners might be aware of the term coercive control.
(08:55):
So a sense of that power dynamic, which to an
extent would stem from social norms, something as innocent as
saying I'll run the business. All you need to do
is sign XYZ doctor let me look after it. And
it does present a bit of a slippery slope. And
really something distressed as well with your listeners is this
(09:17):
is a relatively small cohort. So we know that it
affects sixteen percent of Australian women and eight percent of
Australian men according to ABS data from about four years ago.
But that is a significant cohort. When you add it all,
we're talking two point four million Australians.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Okay, and it's twice put very wrong numbers on it.
The issue is twice as prevalent among women than.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Men statistically speaking.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Yes, okay, very very interesting. I've got to hold it
right there. We're going to take a break and we're
going to come back and do a closer dive on
this back in a moment. Talks. Hello, Welcome back to
(10:05):
The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby from The
Australian and I am talking to an kus Kumar from
the Tax Clinic. The Tax Clinic is at the University
of New South Wales and it's Newish. It's not perhaps
very well known in the broader investment audience, but they're
doing some fascinating work and I think it gives us
(10:26):
a really interesting insight into the world. We talk on
the show mostly about how to understand investing and how
to succeed in investing. Not everybody does just, and businesses
roll over, and investors get into all sorts of trouble,
and people at all levers get into all sorts of
trouble financially. And there is if you can't pay for
(10:49):
a financial advisor being five five hundred a year, it's
after that where do you go. There's financial counselors, but
they really only want to deal with people who are
are in desperate straits and difficulties financially. What about people
who had a business who were making a goal of
things and it went after rails And this is the
(11:09):
sort of layer and if I'm if I've got it right,
this is the layer of where you come in. Can
you tell me what rule has divorce got in your files?
If you like?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
We definitely find that amongst our coport of clients, the
incidence of financial abuse is a very strong undercurrent, and
from the literature we also know that is quite common
as a post separation event. So with all of the
other forms of abuse increasingly falling out of reach of perpetrators,
(11:42):
financial abuse often rams up, or even if there was
no domestic violence, the opportunity for financial abuse post separation
then presents a catalyst for that following a brilliant breakdown.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yes, of course, is it new. It's just we call
the financial abuse. But is it new? Is there anything
change interested there from? Has it always been there? Are
there particular trends that are new and so more urgent.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
There's definitely been an increased awareness over the last few
decades the financial abuse is a subset of domestic violence,
but in terms of the overall public perception that is
still in progress. In terms of shifting the dial awareness
an understanding that domestic violence isn't just the physical forms
(12:33):
but very much the financial forms, and quite chillingly, typically
it takes a bignoms survivor about seven attempts to escape
a relationship, and it's a lack of economic security, financial
security that can draw them back to a perpetrator.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yes, yeah, and what are the flash points? Obviously one
is separation and post separation, but generally a got are
the flash points for you in this area?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
That's certainly the situation that we see with our client base.
From the literature more broadly, we know that key milestones
like having a child are also one of those circumstances,
and that goes back to the dynamic of power and control.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
What about when businesses go sour.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
The business and relationship breakdown unfortunately, of both markers of
financial vulnerability and financial distress. And when we zoom out
and look at the other literatures beyond the tax space,
which is my Baily wig. But in conversations that I've
had with researchers in the medical space, for example, in
mental health research, it's quite well established that financial distress
(13:47):
and mental health go hand in hand. And similarly in
the gender space or the gender violence space, financial distress
and financial abuse go hand in hand. There's a bit
of a vendor diagram here where they all intersect.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Is there any evidence that financial success and financial wellbeing
go hand in hand?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
That's a great question. Financial well being is certainly an
area that is looked at in the banks have done
some amazing work in the center of social impact to
one of the it's complicated to define, but one of
the pieces is around a social capital piece that goes
to that point. I think you're raising as well, James.
But it's certainly a complicated space when you look at
(14:30):
the opposite end of the spectrum with financial vulnerability and
all the things that can be indicators of a lack
of financial wellbeing.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Can I ask you just in the area of taxes,
it is a tax cliniqic it be worth people, it
would be worth knowing. And this is just strictly an
academic question as such in our tax system. A lot
of people on the show when they complain about the
fact that you must just if you get a tax
bill for whatever reason, like you must establish so it
get a bill for ten thousands and you say that
(15:00):
it shouldn't be ten thousand, it should be eight thousand,
but you must establish why it's not ten thousands. Is
that typical all around the world. People don't necessarily know
is that Western convention in.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Tax And that goes to a really interesting point, James,
and something that leads to a question around broader tax
payer rides. So we know in Australia, like you said,
we have effectively both a self assessment scheme over the
last couple of decades and a reverse onus of proof.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yes, reverse owners of proof. That's it, Yeah, beautifully put
academically sweetly termed yeah, reverse owners of proof, which would
be described in more furious terms by some people.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
But yeah, okay, indeed, indeed and this is something that
is a real challenge.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
But is it a global standard? Is that how it
works everywhere? Ah?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Well, we do know that the back in nineteen ninety
three there was a recommendation to reform that by government agency,
the Joint Commity of Public Accounts, And so this is
something that has been contested on and off since ninety three,
and it's something that is not necessarily Every system has
(16:09):
its own nuances and quirks. Where the rubber hits the
road is of course, in disputes, like you say, and
we don't have all of the mechanisms available compared to
some other jurisdictions like the US, but of course they
in turn have their own quirks. We do have a
taxpayer name died, we do have a taxpayer charter, but
(16:32):
we don't have a taxpayer bill of rights. So across
the patchwork we have a system where we know that
there is rule of law and there are tax dispute
resolution mechanisms. But in terms of the burden on taxpayers,
it is well established that disproportionately affects the lower end
(16:53):
of the tax paying spectrum because it's nearly impossible to
navigate all of this complexity without is that right?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Even know that? Okay? And in terms of from again,
many of our listeners have self managed super funds when
I'm guessing again, but I imagine the hotspot for you is couples.
You see, you pass a restaurant, there was a couple
in the restaurant. They seem to be going great. Next
thing you find out the businesses for sale. The couple
have broke up, the business has broken up. Often in
(17:21):
those cases there's also self managed super fund complications because
the self managed super funds which they both had owned
the business or owned the business premises or whatever. The
SMSF brigade as such, where where do they go? Can
you deal with them?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
There is a real risk of people in those situations
falling through the cracks because our service doesn't have enough
resourcing to meet all of the unmet need unfortunately. But
we are growing trend in the Australian landscape them Like
you said, James, we're relatively new across Australia. There's to
both side of politics, credit and growing awareness and understanding
(17:59):
that this scheme needs to be further supported. To the
National Tax Clinics program has about twenty tax clinics Australia wide.
But we really do need to have more funding so
that we can support a broader pool of people who
are all falling through the cracks, because, like you've said,
without the professional advice that you need to navigate complexity,
(18:20):
it's nearly impossible to do so.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Okay, So tell me from your experience so far in
this very interesting sort of coningage area. Really i'm sure academically,
what are your lessons that you would give to listeners
that they don't end up sitting opposite you in your clinic.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
There's three key things. One is, where possible, making sure
that cash flow is managed in a way that is
mindful of tax compliance obligations, because that's one of the
pitfalls that we do see, and that's easier said than done.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
They just keep pushing the tax dimension away.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And that goes to financial literacy and tax literacy like
you were saying before, but of course easier to bean
done where there are cash flow struggles. Then quarantining off
the GST is obviously a challenge. The second when it
comes to financial abuse, is being able to recognize the science,
(19:22):
not necessarily in your clients, but just more broadly as well.
So there are five key telltale signs or red flags
of financial abuse, particularly in tax situations. So one is
controlling access to money, so restricting access to bank accounts,
business income tax information. The second is hiding money, so
(19:45):
keeping finances secret and hiding income and assets. The third
is shifting debts, and we see that financial counselors have
been identifying that for a while. Now they call it
sexually transmitted debt. We've also identified a subcohoro sexually transmitted
tax stets. So that's the situations like the dPNs for example,
or taking out loans in the other person's name.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
What the dPNs, you might explain what that means? What
do you mean? Oh?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yes, So dPNs is the director penalty notices. It's those
situations where the company liability goes to the director and
where we have a sole director situation with a biglim survivor,
with the perpetrator being the shadow director. That then means
that the ATO by default has to go after the
one early director and.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
This would be a hotspot where people signed something and
didn't realize what they were signing precisely.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
And then fourth is making decisions, making financial decisions for
that other person, restricting their visibility around access to money
decision making. And then finally, the fifth one is having
inaccessible information, so business structures or financial arrangements the block
access to money.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Right, Okay, how's the arrival of cryptocurrency made this worse
or easier for the perpetuator.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
We haven't identified crypto specifically as a mechanism, but what
we do know is that business is the strong thread
through all of our matters where there is a financial
abuse element, and unfortunately that number itself has been growing.
So when we first started the clinic, it was about
sixty percent of our female clients self reporting financial abuse
(21:24):
and that was on trend year on year up until
last year where it ballooned to over eighty percent and
it's been at that level for the last two years.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Is that Does that imply that the majority of the
victims in these scenarios are female?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yes? Absolutely. What we see with our cohort is an
overrepresentation of women.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
And is it getting better or worse over the last
two years?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It has been markedly worse, even though our client intake
mechanism hasn't changed dramatically.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
And you're convinced that it has got worse rather than
the reporting has changed.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Because we used an internationally recognized screening scale rather than
just ask a yes no question, I am confident, so
we use the scale that I Can't Abuse Too, which
asks over a dozen questions that are more broad and
so it doesn't rely on awareness of the respondent to
the survey question.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, okay, very good. We'll be back in a moment.
Folk curated once more for and some issues that have
come up on the show and a very interesting question
from d Back in a moment. Hello, Welcome back to
the Australians Money Puzzled podcast. James Kirby here with Ann
(22:46):
ks Kumar from the Tax Clinic at the University of
New South Wales, which is a specialist unit dealing with
people who have complex tax problems where there has been
financial abuse. Is that almost that's mandatory? Is it that
you must prove the abuse? I expect you must before
you will deal with a client.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
That's such a great question because the of an injury
burden is a challenge that the ATO is facing into
now following the Tax Ombosman's recommendations. So we ran an
investigation of financial abuse and the tax system and made
some recommendations for both administrative and legislative reform. When it
(23:29):
comes to proving abuse, what we do is rely on
the experts rather than us trying to become a master
of all. We just focus on the tax space and
rely on the community expertise from financial abuse services and
domestic violence support services to do that triaging for us
(23:51):
in the majority instances.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
So no one comes to you directly. They are referred.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
We used to when we first started, a combination of
referrals from financial counselors and people who just found out
about us. But we have found that because we want
to only help the people who are in most need,
mindful that a lot of people might be struggling financially
(24:18):
but can still afford to pay for tax advice, we
don't want to be in that space where we even
risk having the optics of cannibalizing the profession, and so.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
We are serving the wrong people over people who were
more deserving. Precisely, it's all pro bono, I imagine. Yes, yes, okay,
very interesting, All right, now, I had a couple of issues,
but I've kept one really interesting question, and I had
been wondering how I would deal with this, who would
answer it? But you've come along so as perfect it's
from d I just read it. Many women who have
(24:52):
secondary who have been secondary credit cardholders on their partners account,
whether due to traditional household rules or lower income, find
themselves in a difficult financial position, whether their partner passes
away or our relationship ends. Despite years of responsible use,
they often struggle to obtain a credit card in their
own name because they have not built an independent credit history.
(25:16):
The issue particularly impacts older women, homemakers, and those who
work part time. Banks often do not recognize secondary card
holders as having a financial track record, leaving these people
financially vulnerable. Would you consider covering this, Yes, we're going
to cover it right now. So this is an issue
(25:37):
that how does it work if you have you get
a credit card as a couple and one's a secondary holders,
so you don't exist as far as the bank concern
is that it.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
What we've done from our conversations with clients and community
support services is that the primary secondary card holder piece
can be quite challenging to unpick, and that's one of
the reasons why a lot of experts in this space
suggest separate bank accounts and also shared if that is
what works for that particular couple, but certainly having separate
(26:10):
bank accounts is often noted as one of the strategies
that can be adopted more broadly, not just for the
track record form a credit history perspective, but just from
a control and access to money considering.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
It's just the basic fundamental independence of it.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yes, and that's not to say that's the silver believe,
but that is what is typically suggested.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yes, and without that, it is the case that if
you're a second credit card holder, even for years and years,
you don't have a credit history. So you walk into
the bank after twenty five years where your partner was
the primary card holder, and you say to the bank,
I want my own credit card and they say, we
don't know who you are. We have no credit history
(26:55):
of you.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
And while we haven't had as much bank king sector
related issues to manage because we only deal with the
tax piece, one of the things that Australian banks ought
to be very proud of is that we are global
leaders in the last four to five years, especially around
kind understanding of financial abuse, and so hopefully there might
(27:17):
be more opportunities for change in that space as well,
because the banking sector is quite ahead of the game.
When it comes to its approach to identify and supporting
people experiencing financial abuse.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Okay, very good, I see. So tell me if you
could wave a magic wand and there was one thing
your clinic and all the clinics around the country and
there obviously sounds something of a loose collection at the moment,
but if there was one thing that you'd like to
see happen, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Oh? I love the idea of being able to waive
a magic Wand how expansive can we get here? We're
very close to getting law reform, which hopefully won't even
require a magic one because of the bipartisan support to
change the tax laws around the weaponization of the tax system.
More broadly, what I would love to see is more
(28:08):
awareness around tax literacy, more understanding that once you get
an ABN, that comes with the knock on effect of
tax related compliance obligations, so that ideally we don't have
anyone needing.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Clinics like that don't really tell you what I can
get an ABN in two seconds. It doesn't They don't
really tell you. It's not really written a black and
white across the top. The obligations of that is.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
It exactly, and then the first time you might have
a touch point might be eighteen months down the track
and you may not have realized that there are all
of these tax compliance obligations.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
And just on that national law reform around abuse. If
it all comes to pass and falls into place, what
would happen that is not happening now A.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Number of things. So, like we're talking about, one of
the challenges is that the Tax Office right now has
its hands tied to an extent. Where there is financial abuse,
they still have to rely on the laws that they
have at their disposal. What we've been advocating for has
been US inspired innocent spouse relief, So where you can
(29:13):
prove abuse, the AHO can release the victims survivor from
that tax liability and instead opt to pursue the perpetrator.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Okay, I see, very good, Okay, and where's that at
an We now.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Have bipartisan support, which I'm really grateful for and please
to see. So both the AOP and the Coalition just
last week announced that as part of their election promises.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
So something that should hopefully come up in the next parliament.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
A bit look forward to seeing that change, all right.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
I will look out for that in my daily role.
All right, very good, Hey, thanks very much for coming
on the show. And ks Kumar from the Tax Clinic.
Very interesting work and best of luck with it.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Great to have you on, folks. That was and ks
Kumar the Tax Clinic interesting material. If you listen back
to some of the shows we've had financial counselors and
we had the Rob Burgesson who was a financial counselor
telling us what he does there, and it's really interesting.
There's different layers when things go wrong and if you
can't pay for financial advice, it's it's quite a drop
(30:20):
down to where you could be taken in if you like,
by a financial counselor, where they would deal with you. Interesting.
That strata where people have businesses that go off the
rails is the strata that the tax clinics are looking at.
And of course the whole issue of abuse so big
in that area. Hopefully they get that legislation through parliament. Okay,
(30:42):
keep those emails coming, please, I have some space to
answer some questions, so let's have them. The Money Puzzle
at the Australian dot com dot Au. Today's show was
produced by the Isama glue talk to you soon, show
the FO
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!