ATO Debt Calculator
Everyone you ask has an answer, and they are all different. A broker can refinance it onto the house. A lender can advance the money inside a week. Your accountant mentions restructuring. Each of them explains their own option properly and none of them explains the others.
This puts all six side by side. Move the slider to your debt and compare what you pay each month against what you pay in the end.
Not sure which of these is actually open to you? One conversation with a registered liquidator settles it, and it costs nothing.
Discuss your optionsWhether your lodgements went in on time.
It sounds like a filing question. It is actually the single fact that decides whether the company's tax debt can become your personal debt, and it is already settled by things you did or did not do months ago.
If the ATO issues a director penalty notice, there are two kinds. Which one you get is not discretionary.
If your BAS and PAYG withholding were lodged within three months of their due dates, the notice gives you 21 days to act. Appointing a restructuring practitioner, a voluntary administrator or a liquidator inside that window removes the personal liability. The company's debt stays the company's.
If they were not lodged within three months, the penalty locks down. Lodging late afterwards does not undo it, and no company process removes it. You owe it personally whatever happens to the company. Unpaid super works the same way and is stricter again, because the deadline is the lodgement date of the superannuation guarantee charge statement rather than a three-month grace period.
Two consequences follow from that, and they run in opposite directions.
The first is that the 21 days start when the notice is issued, not when you open it. Notices go to the address on the ASIC register. If that address is an old accountant's office or a house you have moved out of, the clock can run out before you know it started.
The second is the more useful one. If your lodgements are up to date, you are in a much stronger position than you probably feel, because you still hold the option the notice is designed to take away. That is worth knowing before you refinance anything.
Less than the people selling you a loan suggest.
From 1 July 2025, interest the ATO charges on your debt stopped being tax deductible, and a lot of advice has been built on top of that. Refinance the debt, the argument goes, and the interest becomes deductible again.
The interest on the new loan generally is deductible. That part is right. What the deduction is worth is the question, and the answer is a quarter of the interest, not a quarter of the debt, and only where the company is making a profit to deduct it against. Switch the profitability toggle in the calculator and watch how little the totals move.
The part that gets left out entirely: most small business ATO debt is BAS debt, GST and PAYG withholding. That is money collected on someone else's behalf, not an expense, and it was never deductible. Refinancing does not convert a non-deductible debt into a deductible one. It moves it onto your house.
Whether a deduction is available in your situation is a question for you and your accountant, before you sign anything.
Debt is paid out of profit, not revenue.
Take a $200,000 ATO debt and a business running at a 10% net profit margin:
Three million dollars of trading, on top of everything you are already committed to, before the debt is gone. That is the number to hold in your head while a broker explains how manageable the monthly repayment looks.
A restructure can feel like the frightening option. Weigh it against the alternative: 25 years of mortgage repayments, your house standing behind a debt the company created, and turning up to work every day for the next twenty years to pay off a bad year that is already behind you.
Then weigh the other version. One decision, made properly, now. The debt dealt with. Money staying in the business instead of going to interest. Your home out of it. And a company worth running for the next decade.
Business Reset are registered liquidators and registered restructuring practitioners. We deal with ATO debt every day, and most of the directors we speak to have been carrying it a lot longer than they needed to.
If you are an accountant working through this with a client, the calculator above is built to be used in the room with them.
The first conversation is free and costs you nothing but the time.
General information only, not advice. Calculations are based on benchmarks and subject to assessment of your specific circumstances.
SBR eligibility. A small business restructure needs total unsecured liabilities under $1 million, ATO lodgements up to date and staff superannuation paid.
Personal liability. ATO debts under a director penalty notice may require further payment to be made. The summary of director penalty notices on this page is general and does not account for your circumstances.
Tax. Calculations assume interest is tax deductible at 25% for a profitable company, otherwise no deduction is available. Whether you or your company are entitled to a deduction must be confirmed with your accountant before any decision.