Older Australians pressured into paying unfair robotax debts will not be compensated, government says

Finance minister Katy Gallagher says people who felt intimidated into paying back ATO debts so old they are impossible to verify will not get their money back

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Older Australians who felt pressured into paying decades-old debts as part of the troubled robotax" campaign have hit out at a government decision to deny refunds after describing the tax grab as coercive.

The federal government has disclosed it intends to amend laws that will allow the Australian Taxation Office to keep debts put on hold before 2017 on ice indefinitely, rather than extract them from future tax refunds, as was planned.

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