Tax Debt Lawyers in Melbourne

The ATO is the one creditor you cannot outlast

An ordinary creditor has to send demands, sue you, win, and then enforce. The ATO skips most of that queue. It can make you personally liable for company tax debts with a director penalty notice, take money directly from your bank account with a garnishee notice, tell the credit bureaus about your debt, and apply to wind your company up, all without ever suing you first.

Leaving ATO letters unopened is the most expensive way to handle the problem. Every unanswered letter moves the file closer to enforcement, interest compounds daily at close to 11 per cent, and since 1 July 2025 none of that interest is tax deductible.

Call MK Law on 1800 130 120 before responding to any ATO deadline. The first call is free, and directors who engage early keep options that directors who engage late have already lost, including the option of not being personally liable.

The 21-day DPN window is the deadline that catches the most directors. A director penalty notice gives you 21 days before the ATO can pursue you personally for the company’s PAYG, super and GST. Where lodgements were on time, an administration, small business restructuring or liquidation inside those 21 days can still remit the penalty. Where lodgements were more than three months late, the DPN locks down and payment becomes the only exit. The only way to know which type you are holding is to have the notice read properly, today.

What we negotiate, and when

Most tax debt files end in a payment arrangement, and the quality of that arrangement depends on when the negotiation starts. Early, with lodgements up to date, the ATO will consider realistic instalments, remission of general interest charge, and time to restructure. Late, after a garnishee notice or a winding-up application, the conversation happens with a gun on the table.

We prepare the financial case the ATO actually responds to, negotiate the arrangement, and apply for GIC remission where the history supports it. Where the debt has passed $100,000 and been overdue more than 90 days, we deal with intent-to-disclose notices inside their 28-day window so the debt never reaches the credit bureaus, since an active, complying arrangement stops the reporting. And where the company genuinely cannot carry the debt, we bring in our insolvency lawyers early enough for small business restructuring or administration to still protect the directors. A DPN is rarely the only director liability in play by then, because the guarantees you signed and the trading you did on the way down come with exposures of their own.

Owed money by someone with ATO trouble?

Tax debt cuts the other way too. If your debtor is fighting the ATO, you are competing with the Commonwealth for the same shrinking pool of assets, and the ATO does not wait politely. A customer with a disclosed tax debt or a winding-up application against it is a customer to stop extending credit to now. We run commercial debt recovery against distressed debtors with that clock in mind, moving to a statutory demand or judgment before the ATO’s enforcement leaves nothing behind.

Call before the next deadline passes

Every ATO enforcement step closes an option that was open the week before. Call 1800 130 120 or use the form on this page for a free, confidential first call with a tax debt lawyer. If the wider business is carrying other creditors too, our debt recovery lawyers page covers the full picture from both sides of the ledger.