Senate Economics Legislation Committee [Part 2], , 1:05:29 to 1:08:44
Officials explain the options considered for credit card payments, including government funding, and provide data on the 256,000 small businesses currently using credit cards for tax.
Topics: Government spending, Procurement
Speakers: Rob Heferen, Speaker 6, Senator Lisa Darmanin, Unknown Speaker
thank you for that answer, Commissioner. Um, it it was a long answer. Um, out of respect for my colleagues who also have questions for you. Um, if you're able to answer um, in a shorter period of time to my follow-up questions um, out of fairness to everyone, I'd be very grateful. But there was a lot of helpful information there. So, thank you for that. And you referred in your answer in an earlier part of it um that when you were um considering banning credit card payments for tax, you were considering a range of options and you went on to reference two options and one option is obviously funding from the government as you've got in place now and the other other was no credit cards. Did you consider any other options than two or is those two options the full range of
your considerations? re really to those two options. We did uh in our internal discussions um the the legislation that that um puts um enables the ban to occur, it does actually allow some to pass keep a search charge and pass it on and so our internal discussions would have maintaining the search charge. Uh but when it came to the like the reality of discussing it with our minister uh realized that well actually that's not going to be tenable. Um
>> why not?
>> Uh because the minister had made it clear to all um portfolios that the search charge ban is in place and that should be the position the government takes as well. So so we we we did contemplate that internally. the minister um uh wasn't didn't discuss that with the minister on the base. I didn't think that would be in fact I was sure that wouldn't be tenable. So when it came to the discussions with the minister it was stop using credit cards and to be fair there's sort of range of options about once it stops what period of transition you know you could stop immediately stop with a month transition two month transition a longer transition and so but it was to end up stop using credit cards and then the other was to continue using credit cards and then seeking um uh basically extra funding to cover that cost.
>> I'm going to have to rotate the call >> already. Yeah, it's been 13 minutes.
>> I'll just I thought I had 10 minutes.
>> Yeah, it's been 13.
>> Oh, thank you. Um, all right. Well,
>> I'll come back.
>> I'll just ask one more quick question then. Um, so what modeling do you have about the number of small businesses who pay their tax by credit card? And in particular, you referred to that 5% of of small businesses who pay by credit card as being a small number of taxpayers. rather than a percentage. How many small businesses comprises that 5% that pay their tax by credit card? So, any modeling? If so, what? And give me a number of businesses instead of a percentage, please.
>> It's not something we model because we have the actuals. Uh, and it's 256,000 small businesses. Uh, I think I'm uh certainly I'll I've said that out loud and I don't have my glasses on. I'll put my glasses on. Uh, I'm sure that's the right uh number, but if that's if that's a bit out, we'll we'll correct that. But it's 250 something.
>> 6,000 small businesses pay their tax by credit card. >> Thank you, Commissioner. And I'll I'll stay in the rotation queue, please.