Home topics news Credit: ATO News News How the ATO’s depersonalisation shift is forcing SMEs to rethink compliance Yajush Gupta February 11, 2026 The ATO’s shift to automated tax enforcement is changing how small businesses manage compliance. Accountant and solicitor Adam Ahmed explains the practical strategies SMEs need now. What’s happening : The Australian Taxation Office has removed tax deductions for General Interest Charge and Shortfall Interest Charge from 1 July 2025, whilst maintaining the current 11.17 per cent annual interest rate. Why this matters : Without the ability to claim interest deductions, businesses must adopt proactive cash flow planning and risk management strategies to avoid punitive measures that could threaten their survival in an increasingly automated enforcement environment. Small businesses are noticing a fundamental shift in how the Australian Taxation Office manages tax compliance, with the recent change in General Interest Charge remission serving as yet another example of increasing de-personalisation. “Small businesses will have noticed the steady shift towards de-personalisation in how the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) manages tax compliance, the recent change in General Interest Charge (GIC) remission being yet another example,” says Adam Ahmed, dual-qualified accountant and solicitor and founder of Entity Accountants and Specialist Law. “The current policy shift means that businesses now might as well be dealing with a computer, rather than a person, and in doing so, results and outcomes increasingly follow a pre-determined formula with no context.” The transformation marks a departure from how tax compliance historically worked. Dealing with the ATO