SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – When the Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026 received Royal Assent in June, it set in motion the most significant change to Australia’s capital gains tax regime since the introduction of the 50 per cent discount in 1999. From 1 July 2027, the discount is abolished for individuals, trusts and partnerships. In its place: CPI-based cost-base indexation and a 30 per cent minimum tax on the post-reform portion of any capital gain.
For the millions of actively trading businesses in Australia, the transitional provision under Subdivision 112-E is the critical mechanism. It creates a notional disposal and reacquisition of every CGT asset held at 30 June 2027. Gains accrued up to that date remain eligible for the existing 50 per cent discount when the asset is eventually sold. Gains accrued after that date fall under the new regime. The dividing line between the two is the market value of the asset at 30 June 2027.
That number, defensible, evidence-based, and signed by a qualified professional valuer, is what determines how much of a future gain attracts the old treatment and how much attracts the new one. For a business owner selling a business worth several million dollars in five or ten years’ time, the financial difference could be hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional tax. The incentive to get a valuation done, and done properly, is difficult to overstate.
“This is not a discretionary exercise. If you own a business you intend to sell within the next ten years, the difference between having a properly prepared valuation at 30 June 2027 and not having one is real money. The ATO’s penalty safe-harbour makes the position clear: if you engage a professional valuer and properly instruct them, you are protected. If you don’t, you are not,” said Stuart Cook, Founder of Dalio Voss.
The challenge is capacity. The qualified valuation profession in Australia is small. Registered Business Valuers through the AIBB, and Business Valuation Specialists accredited through CA ANZ and CPA Australia, number in the hundreds, not the thousands. A single practitioner, working at the pace required to produce a thorough, defensible report, can handle three to four hundred engagements a year at most. The demand the CGT reset will generate dwarfs that supply many times over. The risk is not that valuations will not get done. The risk is that they will get done badly, by unqualified people, under time pressure, with corners cut, and that business owners will not discover the deficiency until the ATO tests their position years later.
Dalio Voss has been structured from the ground up to operate at a different scale. The firm has built a panel of senior, independent valuers supported by a common methodology, a structured quality assurance process and an operational infrastructure that removes the administrative burden that has historically consumed a disproportionate share of a qualified valuer’s time. The result is a firm that can serve more business owners without compromising the quality or the independence that makes a valuation worth having. Every report follows a consistent process: financial normalisation, appropriate method selection, evidenced comparables where available, structured risk assessment, and a signed report with a complete evidence pack that documents every input and every conclusion.
The firm works primarily through accountants and lawyers, the professionals who advise business owners on exactly these kinds of decisions. A referral partnership allows accounting firms to offer their entire client base access to qualified, independent valuation services without the professional liability, the independence conflict or the capacity ceiling that comes with trying to do the work in-house. The referring accountant’s relationship with their client is preserved and strengthened, not displaced. For the accountant, it means being able to say to every client in the practice: we have a valuation partner, they are qualified, they are independent, and they can get it done before 30 June.
Division 152 small business CGT concessions survive the reform, with the 50 per cent active-asset reduction’s aggregated turnover threshold rising to $10 million from the 2027-28 financial year. For eligible business owners, the interaction between the transitional reset and Division 152 can be significant, but only if the underlying valuation is defensible. A report that does not hold up under scrutiny puts the concession at risk as well.
Dalio Voss is currently accepting engagements across all Australian states and territories, with international expansion into the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States planned for 2027.
More information is available at www.daliovoss.com.au.
