Who would have predicted that nothing good would come from the credit card surcharge ban, which came into effect today? To add insult to injury, the ATO also announced today that it will ban credit card payments outright. Before we dive into that, let's recap the positives that have come, or will come, out of the surcharge ban:
- Consumers will pay more for goods. Prices will increase because small businesses can't just absorb the fee they previously added on. Prices will likely get rounded up too, so overall we'll be worse off.
- Inflation gets a kick. The head of the Restaurant and Café Association called today one of the largest inflationary lifts in Australia's history. The RBA insists it's a rounding error of about 0.1% of CPI. This is the same RBA that told us inflation was transitory.
- Our reward points have been decimated. Not only will we earn fewer points going forward, earning caps and sign-up bonuses are also coming down as a result. But yes, we won't have to be confused anymore about paying 10c extra on a $6 latte.
- If you're a small business and you were hoping this would also bring down the cost of accepting cards, tough luck! The banks (making record profits, mind you!) and payment companies aren't the ones carrying the cost of the ban, so while you might see a marginal reduction in fees, it's hardly worth the tradeoff.
Which brings me to point 5: paying our damn taxes so the government can spend them on something "useful". But I digress, we don't do politics here.
For plenty of small businesses, cash flow is king. Putting your quarterly BAS or PAYG on a credit card buys real breathing room when money is tight. From 1 December, that's gone too, so it's bank transfer or BPAY from here on. Funny how the burden the ATO refuses to carry is the exact same one the RBA just told every café and small business in the country to absorb.
There is one silver lining. Between now and 30 November, the ATO can't charge a fee on credit card payments, after previously charging between 0.94% and 2.03%. That's two months of fee-free tax payments on your card. I'm not saying you should, and I'm not an accountant, but as far as I know, overpaying the ATO and requesting a refund has never been illegal.
The Solution: How To Pay The ATO With Credit Card & Earn Points
To be fair, plenty of business owners never paid the ATO directly by credit card anyway. Most cards earn points on government payments at a reduced rate, if at all, and once you added the ATO's card fee, the maths rarely stacked up.
The better route for paying the ATO, or suppliers who don't take cards, has always been a B2B payment service such as pay.com.au, B2Bpay, RewardPay or Payment Logic. If you hold an American Express business card, Amex's own AccessLine does the same job. You pay the service by card, it pays the ATO by bank transfer, and the ATO's ban doesn't touch you.
If you don't have an Amex business card yet, now is the time to get one (if you sign up via one of our links, we earn a commission if you’re approved, this helps us produce free and independant content and frequent flyer guides so thank you!).
American Express Platinum Business Card
Offer ends 3 Nov 2026
Sign-up bonus
350,000
bonus Membership Rewards points
- Earn rate Up to
- 2.25 pts / $1
- Our rating
The Amex Platinum Business is currently offering 350,000 bonus Membership Rewards points plus an $875 credit when you apply by 3 November 2026 and spend $12,000 on eligible purchases in the first three months. Going forward, if you're a business owner who isn't using Amex, your frequent flyer earning will be very limited. Amex is one of the few options left for earning more than one frequent flyer point per dollar, uncapped.
Once you've got the card, sign up to one of the services above and pay the ATO as you normally would, with up to 55 days of interest-free cash flow and a tonne of points on top.
- Sign up to B2BPay with our referral link for 5,000 bonus points
- Sign up to Pay with our referral link for 10,000 bonus points
These services charge a fee (usually around the 2% range depending on which card), of course. Because you're running a business, that fee is generally a deductible business expense (ask your accountant). In effect, you're using pre-tax business money to buy frequent flyer points, which you can then use to fly somewhere nice.
