How this tax clinic supports vulnerable Australians

Annette Morgan FCPA is a tax accountant, an academic and a champion of social justice. As director and co-founder of the Curtin Tax Clinic at Curtin University, she is committed to closing gaps in tax education and providing access to reliable tax advice for some of the most marginalised groups in Western Australia.

A recent study by researchers at UNSW shows that more than 30 per cent of Australians in financial hardship need tax advice but are unable to access it, and that late tax returns — which sometimes lag by up to 30 years — are more likely to be seen in lower socio-economic communities.

While the Australian Taxation Office’s Tax Help service provides valuable assistance to those with incomes of A$70,000 or less, it is only offered between July and October each year.

Initiatives like Curtin Tax Clinic aim to close this gap by providing eligible people with competent, free tax advice from student volunteers under the supervision of experienced tax professionals. And it is open 50 weeks of the year.

“Life events have the potential to derail anyone, and then their responsibility as taxpayers is not as important to them,” says Morgan, who is also academic lead of the Industry Community Hub at Curtin University.

“People get sick, someone important in their life dies, or maybe they have family issues. There are all kinds of situations that can make people vulnerable, and while we do not have a magic wand to make their tax debts disappear, we work very hard to help them get their tax affairs in order.”

Forging a new path

The first of its kind in Australia, Curtin Tax Clinic was set up as a trial in 2018. Thanks to the advocacy of Morgan and her co-founder Donovan Castelyn, the federal government now funds similar tax clinics at 20 universities around  he country, including Curtin, under the National Tax Clinic Program.

In 2023–24, Curtin Tax Clinic's 43 student volunteers helped nearly 1400 new clients.

Its work resulted in hundreds of thousands of tax refunds being sent to vulnerable taxpayers and tax debts being corrected or written off. It has accepted referrals from more than 30 community organisations and has collaborated with the Western Australia Department of Justice to service remote Indigenous communities at Aboriginal Justice Open Days, as well as visiting prisons to help inmates with their tax affairs.

The Clinic recently expanded its support to those experiencing economic and financial abuse, homelessness and domestic violence, and helps build financial and tax literacy via workshops in local high schools and the broader community.

“We started the clinic as a way of connecting taxation students with the community for mutual benefit,” Morgan explains. “We work with a lot of vulnerable taxpayers, such as women over the age of 45 who have ended up homeless due to circumstances out of their control.

They may have completely forgotten that they had a super fund and that there is money in there that we can help them access under grounds of severe financial hardship. Suddenly, they have some money and that gives them more choice in their lives. It is so rewarding to see.”

The clinic also helps international students build their knowledge of the Australian tax system and assists small businesses experiencing financial difficulty.

“We help small businesses get their affairs in order to a point where they can go back to seeing an accountant who can assist them going forward, as the financial burden of being unable to pay for services is relieved,” says Morgan.

“Before they see us, they may have 5–10 years’ worth of tax returns that they have not completed and they just do not have the money to pay an accountant to help lodge them.”

A tax doctor

Morgan was 19 when her interest in tax was sparked. Working in an administrative role at an accounting firm, she developed a passion for tax and went on to complete an accounting and taxation degree, as well as a Master of Tax Law/Taxation.

“I think the creative side of me was interested in tax,” she says. “I love the ability to work with clients to achieve the best outcomes for them, while always being mindful of our tax laws. As tax is an important aspect of all societies — it is the main source of revenue for governments to pay their bills — I always say that tax makes the world go around.”

In 2011, after more than two decades in public practice, Morgan moved to a full-time academic role at Curtin University. Through her work with the Curtin Tax Clinic, she helps taxation students to gain practical experience and build valuable skills like empathy, communication and compassion.

“Accountants are like local doctors, because we learn so much about people’s personal situations and we aim to promote their financial health,” says Morgan. “I always encourage students to see this side of an accounting career.

We are always going to be needed. I cannot see a robot handing someone a tissue when they have just been told that their business needs to close or they have a huge tax debt.

“It is also important for accounting students to be exposed to a wide range of clients,” adds Morgan. “We work with people who are really struggling — we need to help them and it is an important opportunity to give back.

If a student who has worked at Curtin Tax Clinic for several years ends up being the managing director of a Big Four Australian firm, I’d like to think they would invest in a program like this, because they have seen how it can empower and change people’s lives.”

Morgan’s work takes her to places she describes as “eye opening”. In 2021, the Curtin Tax Clinic began working with Waalitj Foundation’s ReSet program, which provides support to people in prison and after leaving prison.

“We worked with 15 men who had just been released from prison, and we found that many had outstanding tax returns, many had refunds they were entitled to, some had debts and some had been charged penalties because they had not been lodging returns.”

Morgan and her team assisted these men to request penalty remissions or reduction of interest charges, and brought their tax affairs into order. They accessed information about the men’s superannuation funds to help them consolidate multiple accounts, and also assisted in getting ATO-held superannuation transferred to their own super fund accounts. 

“It made me think: ‘Why are we helping them on the outside when we should be helping when they are inside?’” says Morgan. “If we can clean up their tax situation while they are in prison, they can potentially make better choices when out of prison because they may have some money or at least their tax affairs will be sorted out.”

Today, Curtin Tax Clinic works with 17 prisons across Western Australia. Morgan reports that its prison program has lodged more than 1900 tax returns for individuals and multiple returns for small businesses. Its work has resulted in more than A$720,000 in tax refunds, as well as penalty remissions, she says.

The Clinic also runs financial literacy workshops at Bandyup Women’s Prison in east Perth, where there is a waitlist of women wanting to join the program.

“This work made me realise that those who are incarcerated do not have the same access to the things that we take for granted,” says Morgan. “But your financial and taxation commitments do not necessarily stop.

Think of things like child support — you may have been earning A$100,000 a year before you go to prison, and that is the amount that your child support payments are based on.

But if you are incarcerated for seven years and earning no income, you are incurring debts based on incorrect information.”

Voice for change

The work of Curtin Tax Clinic has been recognised through a Universities Australia Shaping Australia Award in the Community Champion category, as well as a Western Australian Attorney General’s Community Service Law Award.

“It is amazing to see how much we have grown and the impact that we have had, but there is more to be done,” says Morgan.

“Whenever we finish a project, whether it is with prisons, with Indigenous communities or the homeless, we write a report that outlines the issues we have seen and our recommendations for change.

It is not about taking swipes at the government, but about identifying ways to improve, and we are finding that a lot of government organisations are now asking for our insights and our opinions.

“From one little pro bono tax clinic, we now have the ability to feed into tax policy and government decision-making based on the experience of the taxpayers we serve.”

One piece of advice

“There are a lot of people out there who need help — and there are many community organisations who crave professionals to assist them on a pro bono basis. The social impact value you get often outweighs the cost of the time you put into it. I encourage any professional who has skills to offer to look for those opportunities.”