That does not make the system inherently wrong, but it does make it unforgiving. For those operating at the edge, the line between managing and mismanaging becomes increasingly thin. Not because they do not understand the rules, but because the space within which they can apply them is constrained by reality.
WHAT THE ACCOUNTANT SAW
Chapter 8 – I Am Owed a Life
There is a particular tone that creeps into conversations at certain times of the year. It is not always immediate, nor is it always overt, but it reveals itself quickly enough. It sits somewhere between frustration and disbelief, often wrapped in humour, sometimes edged with anger, and occasionally delivered with a quiet resignation that feels far older than the numbers being discussed.
It usually begins with a simple statement. “I am owed more than this.”
Not always in those exact words, but the sentiment is unmistakable.
After a lifetime of effort, of early mornings and late nights, of risks taken and responsibilities carried, there is a deeply held belief that the outcome should look different. That there should be a point where the ledger balances not just financially, but emotionally. That somewhere along the way, the system should recognise the contribution made and respond in kind. And when it does not, when the tax assessment arrives with its quiet authority and its inconvenient arithmetic, the reaction is rarely about the calculation itself. It is about what that number represents.
Because for many, tax is not seen as part of the journey. It is seen as an interruption to it. An imposition. A cost. Something taken, rather than something shared.
That perception is not born from ignorance. In many cases, it is born from experience. From years of navigating rules that feel inconsistent, from watching others appear to prosper through means that sit uncomfortably close to the edges, from hearing stories of what “can be done” and quietly wondering why those options never seem to align with their own circumstances.
It is in that space that the arguments begin to form.
Some are technical, drawing loosely on fragments of legislation or anecdotes passed between friends and advisors of varying credibility. Others are philosophical, questioning the fairness of a system that appears, at least on the surface, to demand more from those who feel they have already given enough. And then there are those that are neither technical nor philosophical, but deeply personal. Arguments built not on law, but on feeling.
“I’ve worked hard for this.” “They get enough already.” “Surely there’s something we can do.”
Each statement carries with it an expectation. Not just that the number can be reduced, but that it should be.
Over time, these conversations begin to blur into a pattern. Different people, different circumstances, but remarkably similar reasoning. A quiet presumption that tax is an external force, separate from the life being built, rather than an integrated part of it. And perhaps that is where the real tension lies. Because the reality, uncomfortable as it may be, is that tax is not a penalty for success, nor is it an arbitrary cost imposed without connection to the broader system. It is, whether one agrees with it or not, part of a larger framework. A contribution to the infrastructure, the services, and the stability that allow that very success to exist in the first place.
That does not make it easy to accept. Nor does it remove the frustrations, the inefficiencies, or the inconsistencies that are very much present within that system. But it does challenge the narrative.
In this chapter, the stories that follow are not about right or wrong in the strictest legal sense. They are about perception. About expectation. About the space between what people believe they are owed and what the system ultimately delivers.
They are drawn from conversations that are at times amusing, at times confronting, and occasionally exhausting. Each one offering a glimpse into the reasoning that sits behind the question that is never quite asked directly, but is always there beneath the surface.
“How do I keep more of what I believe is mine?”
The answer, as it turns out, is rarely found where people expect it to be. And perhaps more importantly, the question itself may not be the right one to ask.
There was a point, not all that long ago, where I had convinced myself that an entire chapter would be dedicated to what has become loosely known as the Sovereign Citizen movement. It had all the ingredients of a standalone discussion. The certainty. The confidence. The absolute conviction that the system, as it exists, is optional, especially as I have a couple fo clients who suggest “soverignty” is a better option
On reflection, it does not deserve that level of isolation. Not because it is unimportant, but because it is not separate.
It is, in many ways, the most extreme expression of the very thinking that sits underneath so many of the conversations already touched on. Strip away the language, the pseudo-legal phrasing, the references to obscure interpretations of law, and what remains is a single idea taken to its furthest conclusion.
“I do not accept the obligation.”
That is the thread.
The suggestion that participation in the system can be selectively applied. That one can enjoy the benefits while declining the responsibilities. That there exists some mechanism, some hidden understanding, that allows an individual to step outside the framework that governs everyone else.
It is, to put it plainly, an argument so fundamentally detached from practical reality that it beggars belief. And yet, it persists.
There is a surface-level appeal to it. A kind of philosophical neatness that, if accepted without challenge, can sound almost sage. The notion of independence. Of self-determination. Of not being beholden to a structure that is often criticised, and at times rightly so, for its inefficiencies and overreach.
But it collapses the moment it is tested against even the most basic realities of daily life.
The same individual who declares they require no government involvement will, without hesitation, drive on a public road. A road designed, built, and maintained through collective funding. They will expect that road to be safe, that the signage is clear, that the surface is navigable, and that if something goes wrong, there is a system in place to respond.
They will, at some point, rely on a hospital. Not because they choose to, but because life has a way of imposing those moments upon all of us. In that moment, there is no discussion about sovereignty. There is only an expectation of care. Of expertise. Of a system that exists and functions. And that system does not appear by accident. It is funded. Structured. Maintained. Through tax.
That is not to suggest that everything done within that system is beyond question. Far from it. There are decisions made at governmental levels that I do not agree with. There are inefficiencies that frustrate, policies that appear disconnected from the realities they are meant to address, and outcomes that, at times, seem to miss the mark entirely. But disagreement does not equate to disengagement.
At least, not in any practical sense. Because the alternative is not independence. It is absence. And absence does not build roads. It does not staff hospitals. It does not create the underlying stability that allows individuals and businesses to operate with any degree of certainty.
So while the argument of the Sovereign Citizen may sit at the far edge of this discussion, it is not an outlier. It is a magnification. A reflection of the same underlying tension that appears, in softer forms, across countless conversations.
The belief that the obligation can be negotiated away. That participation is optional. That the benefits can be retained while the cost is declined.
In that context, it does not need its own chapter. It already sits at the heart of this one.
Story 1 – Are We Living Beyond Our Means?
There is a moment in many client conversations where the numbers are no longer the centrepiece, even though they remain on the page in front of us. It is subtle at first, almost imperceptible, but it becomes clear once you have seen it enough times. The discussion shifts from what is to what should be, and from that point on, the arithmetic begins to take on a different role. It is no longer there to inform the decision. It is there to be challenged.
I remember one such conversation clearly, not because it was unusual, but because it was so entirely ordinary. The client sat across from me with a quiet frustration that had clearly been building for some time. There was no anger in it, no sense of confrontation, just a steady belief that something was not quite right.
“Life just costs too much,” they said, almost as if they were stating a fact that needed no further explanation.
It was not a complaint so much as a conclusion. Everything that followed was built upon that foundation. The rent, the groceries, the fuel, the incidental expenses that seem to appear without invitation, all of it had edged upward to a point where the margin between income and outgoings felt increasingly narrow. There was a sense that despite doing the right things, working consistently, earning steadily, the outcome was not keeping pace with the effort.
On paper, the situation was relatively straightforward. The client earned in the vicinity of $50,000 per annum after tax. It was a modest but stable income, the kind that, in another time or another place, would have provided a comfortable if not extravagant life. There was discipline in how it was earned, and there was no suggestion of recklessness in how it was being spent.
The complication lay elsewhere.
They were living in an area where property prices had long since moved into territory that bore little resemblance to their income. Houses were selling for over $1,000,000, and even the rental market reflected that same escalation. The location itself had become something of a benchmark, not just for affordability, but for aspiration. It was a place people wanted to be, and as a result, it had become a place that fewer people could realistically afford.
Despite this, the client had anchored themselves there. Their work was local, their routine established, their sense of place tied to that particular geography. Moving was not something they dismissed outright, but it was not something they entertained easily either. It sat in the background as an option of last resort, rather than a practical consideration.
As the conversation unfolded, the familiar themes began to emerge. Wages had not kept pace with the cost of living. Inflation had quietly eroded the value of what was being earned. Governments, in their view, had failed to manage housing affordability in any meaningful way, allowing the market to drift further from the reach of people in exactly their position.
Layered over this, particularly for those in business or exposed to it, were the less predictable forces that rarely make it into neat economic summaries. Demand does not move in straight lines. It surges, it stalls, it disappears altogether at times, often for reasons that sit well outside the control of the individual. A good year can be followed by one that simply does not make sense on paper. Industries that felt stable can be disrupted almost overnight.
The most obvious recent example, of course, was the Coronavirus period. Entire sectors found themselves either overwhelmed or completely shut down, not through mismanagement or poor decision-making, but through circumstances that no amount of planning could have reasonably anticipated. Revenue streams that had been relied upon for years evaporated, only to return later in altered forms, if they returned at all. Government stepped in with support measures, which in themselves became part of the broader tax narrative, but the underlying lesson remained the same. External forces can and do reshape the landscape in ways that individuals must then absorb.
Even outside of events as dramatic as a pandemic, there are constant shifts at play. Interest rates move. Consumer confidence rises and falls. Supply chains tighten and release. Competition enters markets unexpectedly. Technology changes the way services are delivered, sometimes enhancing opportunity and sometimes eroding it. For a business owner, or even an employee tied to a particular industry, these factors create variability that is often underestimated when lifestyle decisions are made.
Each of these elements feeds into the same sense of pressure. Income is rarely as fixed or as predictable as it appears when viewed in isolation. Costs, on the other hand, tend to be far less forgiving. They arrive consistently, regardless of whether demand has softened or external conditions have shifted unfavourably.
Each of these points carried weight. They were not invented frustrations, nor were they based on misunderstanding. They reflected a broader reality that many were experiencing, and in that sense, they were entirely valid. But as is often the case, the validity of the argument did not necessarily resolve the problem.
At some point, the conversation turned, as it almost always does, toward tax. It was not introduced aggressively, nor was it framed as the sole issue, but it was there, sitting just beneath the surface.
“If I could keep more of what I earn, this would be easier.”
It is an understandable line of thinking. Tax is visible in a way that many other costs are not. It is itemised, calculated, and presented in a manner that makes it feel tangible, almost negotiable. It becomes an obvious target when the numbers feel tight, a component that, if adjusted, might relieve the pressure elsewhere.
But as we worked through the figures together, it became clear that even if that pressure were eased, the broader issue would remain. The gap between the income and the cost of sustaining that particular lifestyle was not created by tax. It was created by the relationship between what was being earned and where that income was being applied.
That is where the question, the one that is so often avoided, began to take shape.
Are we living beyond our means?
It is not a question that sits comfortably, particularly when the effort being applied feels reasonable and the expectations do not appear, at least on the surface, to be excessive. The client was not seeking luxury. They were not chasing extravagance. They simply wanted to maintain a life in a place that had, over time, become part of who they were.
And yet, the numbers told a different story.
The cost of remaining in that location required a level of financial flexibility that the income did not provide. It demanded compromises elsewhere, a constant balancing of priorities that left little room for error. Savings became difficult, unexpected expenses became disruptive, and the overall sense of financial stability began to erode.
In that context, tax was not the cause of the problem. It was part of the environment in which the problem existed.
That distinction matters, because it speaks to the broader relationship we have with the system itself. Tax is often viewed as something external, an imposition that sits outside the decisions we make. In reality, it is embedded within those decisions. It is part of the framework in which income is earned and spent, a known factor that must be considered alongside every other expense.
To treat it as separate is to misunderstand its role.
This is where the idea of partnership, uncomfortable as it may be, becomes relevant. Participation in the system brings with it both benefits and obligations. The infrastructure that supports daily life, the services that are relied upon in times of need, the broader stability that allows economic activity to take place, all of these are funded collectively. Tax is the mechanism through which that funding occurs.
That does not mean it is always applied perfectly, nor does it suggest that every dollar is spent in a manner that aligns with individual expectations. There are legitimate criticisms to be made, and they are made often. But those criticisms do not alter the fundamental nature of the relationship.
We are part of the system, whether we like it or not.
In the case of this client, the realisation did not come as a sudden moment of clarity, but as a gradual shift in perspective. As the numbers were revisited and the assumptions tested, it became increasingly difficult to maintain the belief that the situation could be resolved by adjusting a single variable.
The issue was not that tax was too high.
The issue was that the lifestyle, as it had been constructed, required more than the income could sustainably provide.
Once that was acknowledged, the conversation changed. It became less about what could be argued and more about what could be done. The options, while still difficult, became clearer. Remaining in the same location meant accepting the ongoing pressure and the constraints that came with it. Moving meant disruption, but also the possibility of realigning the lifestyle with the income in a way that restored a sense of balance.
Neither option was particularly appealing, which is perhaps why the argument had persisted for so long. Because at its core, the conversation was not just about money. It was about expectation.
It was about the belief that the life being lived should be sustainable simply because it had been built, that the effort invested should translate directly into the ability to maintain it. When that expectation is challenged, the instinct is to look outward, to find the point at which the system has failed to deliver what was anticipated.
Sometimes that instinct is justified. But sometimes, the more difficult truth sits closer to home.
That the numbers, however inconvenient, are simply reflecting a mismatch that cannot be explained away.
And that within the partnership we have with the system, tax included, the responsibility to align those numbers ultimately sits with us.
Story 2 – Play Ostrich
There is a particular type of conversation that does not begin with frustration or anger, but with something far more disarming.
Certainty.
Not the loud, combative kind that invites debate, but the quiet, settled kind that assumes there is nothing to debate at all. It is the tone of someone who has already reached a conclusion and is simply looking for confirmation that their understanding aligns with reality.
More often than not, it does not.
I recall sitting with a client who ran a small but reasonably active business. Nothing overly complex. A steady stream of work, a handful of employees, and enough turnover to suggest that, at least on the surface, things were functioning as they should. There was effort being applied, value being created, and money changing hands with a regularity that implied sustainability.
The difficulty was not in the doing. It was in the understanding of what followed.
As we worked through their numbers, there was an almost casual dismissal of the tax position. Not aggressive avoidance, not even deliberate minimisation, just a quiet assumption that the issue would somehow take care of itself.
“It all balances out,” they said, with a confidence that suggested this was not a new thought, but one that had been settled some time ago. It was not presented as theory or optimism, but as a lived belief, something reinforced by experience rather than tested against it. In their mind, the business had continued to operate, bills had been paid as they fell due, and there had always been enough left at the end of the week to keep going. That, in itself, became the evidence. Survival had been mistaken for equilibrium.
There is a subtle but important difference between the two.
Survival is immediate. It focuses on what needs to be done today, this week, perhaps this month. It prioritises cash in the bank, the ability to meet payroll, to pay suppliers, to keep the doors open. It is reactive by nature, adjusting constantly to whatever pressures present themselves. When a business is in that mode for long enough, it begins to redefine what “working” actually means. If the lights are still on and the phone is still ringing, then the system must be functioning.
Equilibrium, on the other hand, requires a broader view. It accounts not only for what is visible, but for what is accruing beneath the surface. It recognises obligations that have not yet been paid, liabilities that have not yet fallen due, and commitments that are building quietly in the background. It requires an acceptance that not all of the cash on hand belongs to the business in the way it might appear.
In this case, the client had come to equate the two. The business had survived, therefore it must have balanced. The absence of immediate crisis had been interpreted as the presence of stability. Each cycle that passed without incident reinforced the belief, until it became something more than an assumption. It became a principle. And like many principles that go untested, it held firm right up until the moment it didn’t.
Because survival can mask a great deal. It can carry a business forward for far longer than might be expected, particularly when obligations such as tax are deferred, overlooked, or misunderstood. Cash flow can remain positive while liabilities quietly accumulate. The appearance of balance can be maintained, even as the underlying position drifts further from it.
That is the danger embedded within the statement. “It all balances out” sounds like control. In reality, it often reflects adaptation. A constant adjustment to immediate pressures that, while effective in the short term, does not address the full scope of what is building over time. And when those deferred realities eventually surface, as they inevitably do, the distinction between survival and balance becomes impossible to ignore.
When pressed, the reasoning began to unfold. Every expense they incurred carried GST. Every purchase, every input into the business, had that additional component built into it. In their mind, this created a natural offset. The GST collected on income was, therefore, negated by the GST paid on expenses. It became, in effect, a circular exercise that returned to zero.
“And wages,” they added, as if to reinforce the point, “that’s my biggest cost anyway.”
There was no recognition that wages do not carry GST, no consideration of PAYG withholding, superannuation obligations, payroll tax thresholds, or any of the other components that sit quietly beneath what appears to be a simple transaction. In their view, wages were the cost, full stop. The money paid to staff left the business and therefore reduced what was available. What happened beyond that was not something they had factored into their thinking.
It was not that they were trying to avoid the system. They had simply stepped around it.
Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, the existence of the obligation was not denied aggressively. It was denied passively, through omission, through assumption, through a belief that if it was not directly confronted, it would not materially alter the outcome.
The business, in their mind, operated on a version of reality where what came in, less what went out, was theirs. The concept of tax as an embedded component of that equation had not been fully absorbed. It was treated as something that might arise at the end, if at all, rather than something that needed to be accounted for along the way.
There is a certain appeal to that way of thinking. It simplifies everything.
Revenue becomes income in the most literal sense. Expenses become reductions. The remainder becomes “what I earned.” It mirrors the experience of an employee receiving a net wage, where tax has already been dealt with and what arrives in the bank account is, for all practical purposes, theirs to use. But business does not operate on that basis. The gross is not the net. And the obligations that sit between the two do not disappear simply because they are not actively considered.
As we unpacked the position, slowly and without judgement, the gaps began to reveal themselves. The GST that was assumed to “wash out” did not, in fact, do so. The input credits were there, but so too were the liabilities on sales, and the two did not align in the neat symmetry that had been imagined. Wages, far from being the only cost, carried with them additional obligations that had not been provided for. Superannuation had accrued. PAYG withholding had not been remitted in line with the activity statements. The numbers, once adjusted for reality, told a very different story.
What had felt like a manageable position was, in fact, building pressure beneath the surface.
This is where the concept of living beyond one’s means takes on a slightly different form. It is not always about spending more than is earned in a visible sense. Sometimes it is about failing to recognise what is not truly available to be spent in the first place.
The client was not taking excessive drawings. They were not indulging in extravagant purchases or funding a lifestyle that was obviously out of step with their business performance. In many respects, they appeared conservative. But the conservatism was based on incomplete information.
They were operating as though the entirety of what remained after visible expenses was theirs, when in reality a portion of that amount had already been spoken for. It belonged, in effect, to the partnership they had with the system, a partnership that does not require active acknowledgement to exist.
That is the quiet danger in this line of thinking. It does not feel like overextension. It feels like normal operation.
Until the moment arrives where the obligations that have been accumulating in the background step forward and demand to be addressed. At that point, what was once manageable becomes urgent, and what was once theoretical becomes immediate.
The reaction, when it comes, is often one of disbelief. “How can it be this much?” But the answer is rarely found in a single transaction or a single decision. It is found in the pattern, in the accumulation of small assumptions that, over time, compound into something far more significant.
Tax, in this context, has not been imposed unexpectedly. It has simply been ignored. And like most things that are ignored in business, it does not go away. It waits. It accumulates. And eventually, it arrives in a form that can no longer be set aside.
Which brings the conversation back, once again, to the same underlying question. Not whether the system is fair, or whether the rules are ideal, but whether the life and the business being operated are aligned with the full reality of the obligations that sit within them. Because when those obligations are excluded from the equation, the numbers may appear to work.
But only for a time.
And that time, more often than not, is longer than it should be.
That is what makes this pattern so persistent, and in many ways so dangerous. It does not announce itself with immediate failure. It does not collapse at the first misstep. Instead, it allows just enough room for the belief to take hold that everything is under control. Cash continues to flow, albeit tightly. Suppliers are managed, sometimes stretched but rarely broken. Wages are paid, often prioritised above all else. The business survives, and in surviving, it reinforces the narrative that the approach, however imperfect, is working.
This is not an isolated occurrence. It is an almost everyday reality when dealing with micro and small businesses. The ones that sit below the radar of broader economic commentary. The ones not featured in case studies or policy discussions. The ones simply trying to hang on.
Because that is what it often is. Hanging on.
These businesses are not built on excess. They are not operating with layers of margin or buffers designed to absorb volatility. They exist in a space where effort is constant and reward is uncertain, where a good month can be undone by a bad one, and where external factors, completely outside their control, can shift the ground beneath them without warning. A downturn in demand, a change in supplier pricing, an increase in interest rates, a disruption like COVID, or even something as simple as a run of poor weather can be enough to tip the balance.
In that environment, decision-making becomes compressed. The focus narrows to what must be done now to keep things moving. Longer-term considerations, particularly those that do not have an immediate cash impact, begin to slide. Tax becomes something to deal with later. Superannuation becomes something to catch up on. GST becomes something that will, somehow, “balance out.”
It is not born of ignorance as much as it is born of pressure. But pressure does not alter the outcome.
The obligations do not disappear simply because they are deferred. They accumulate. Quietly at first, almost invisibly, but with a persistence that is indifferent to the circumstances that caused them to be overlooked in the first place. What begins as a manageable delay becomes a growing imbalance, and what was once a timing issue becomes a structural problem.
By the time it surfaces fully, it rarely arrives alone. It brings with it the weight of all the decisions that have been made along the way, each one reasonable in isolation, but collectively unsustainable. The disbelief that follows is genuine, because from the inside, the business never felt like it was operating recklessly. It felt like it was doing what it needed to do to survive. And that is the uncomfortable truth that sits at the end of this discussion.
Survival, in and of itself, is not the same as sustainability.
The system within which these businesses operate was not designed with their margins in mind. It assumes a level of structure, of discipline, and of buffer that many simply do not have. It requires compliance at the same time as it demands resilience, and it offers little flexibility when the two come into conflict.
That does not make the system inherently wrong, but it does make it unforgiving. For those operating at the edge, the line between managing and mismanaging becomes increasingly thin. Not because they do not understand the rules, but because the space within which they can apply them is constrained by reality. Choices are made, not in ideal conditions, but in the context of immediate necessity. And yet, the outcome remains the same.
The numbers, eventually, must align.
That is the partnership, whether acknowledged or not. The system takes its share, not as a matter of negotiation, but as a matter of structure. The business must then operate within what remains, not what is hoped for, not what is assumed, but what is actually available.
Anything else is, at best, temporary.
Which is why the stories in this chapter are not exceptional. They are not cautionary tales drawn from the extremes. They are reflections of a pattern that repeats itself quietly, consistently, across countless small enterprises.
People doing their best. Working hard. Trying to build something that supports the life they believe they are owed. And in the process, discovering that the line between what is possible and what is sustainable is not drawn by effort alone.
It is drawn by the numbers that sit beneath it, whether we choose to see them or not.
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