‘Biggest rip-off’: Fresh details about illegal NSW government fees revealed
Deputy Premier Prue Car has denounced the $144m in illegal fees collected by the state government last year as ‘one of the biggest rip-offs of NSW taxpayers in the state’s history’ — but there’s no plan to pay the money back. Take our POLL.
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Almost all of the merchant fees illegally added to Revenue NSW fines and taxes last year amounted to charges of less than $2 each, while more than half of the illegal fees added less than 50 cents to a transaction.
The government is resisting calls to refund the fees it illegally added to government transactions, blaming the former Coalition government for continuing the practice despite being warned it was unlawful.
In the last financial year alone — under Labor — Revenue NSW pocketed $1.67 million in fees it could not legally charge, from 1.8 million transactions.
In all, 97 per cent of the fees were less $2 each, and almost nine in ten were less than $1.
Last financial year, Revenue NSW raised $380,000 from fees worth between 50 cents and $1, and $315,000 was raised from fees worth less than 50 cents each. However, The Daily Telegraph can reveal that in 2023-24, there were 35 credit card payments worth $200,000 each, incurring a $500 fee each time.
Finance Minister Courtney Houssos and Customer Service Minister Jihad Dibb on Wednesday announced that the government would stop charging the credit card fees after discovering it was illegal.
The government is refusing to repay the money unlawfully collected.
Deputy Premier Prue Car on Thursday accused the Coalition of presiding over “one of the biggest rip-offs of NSW taxpayers in the state’s history”.
“The Crown Solicitor’s advice time and again that merchant fees were unlawful was simply ignored,” she said.
She said that the Coalition “owe the people of NSW an apology for taking money from them that they were not legally allowed to take”.
On Wednesday, Ms Houssos said that the former government had been warned three times that charging merchant fees was illegal, including twice in 2016.
That government has not released that advice, from the Crown Solicitor, citing legal privilege.
A number of former ministers — including former premier Dominic Perrottet, former treasurer Damien Tudehope, and former customer service minister Victor Dominello — all denied that they had seen advice that merchant fees were illegal.
However, a Treasury memo from 2018 noted that some agencies “may” have been providing services “where there is no legal authority for the recovery of merchant service charges”.
The fees were charged on payments including licence renewals, or parking fines.
The majority of the fees — 0.25 per cent of the total payment — were worth less than $2.
Renewing a driver’s licence for three years for $162 incurred a merchant fee of around 71 cents, while a $410 fine for not stopping at a stop sign would incurred a $1.80 fee.
According to government modelling, over the past eight years, the average person would have paid about $30 in unlawful fees.
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Originally published as ‘Biggest rip-off’: Fresh details about illegal NSW government fees revealed
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