Shorten to end double dip on tax advice

Bill Shorten has accused rich people who claim thousands of dollars worth of accountant's fees as tax deductions as double dipping.

Bill Shorten has pinched a line from Joe Hockey to describe how rich people manage tax affairs. (AAP)

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has pinched a phrase from Joe Hockey to describe how rich people manage their tax affairs.

He wants to end the practice of paying accountants thousands of dollars to arrange financial affairs and then claim that as a further deduction.

"That is a double dip," Mr Shorten said, a slogan used by Mr Hockey when he was treasurer to attack parents who drew parental leave payments from two sources.

Mr Shorten told the Victorian Labor conference on Sunday it was an absurd situation where if you have a lot of money you can not only claim a lot of deductions, "but you can deduct the costs of deducting the costs".

A Labor government would eliminate the ability to claim more than $3000 on their accountant's costs.

"We should not have a taxation system in this country where paying taxation is an opt out benefit for the very wealthy, and that's what we have at the moment," he said.

An analysis by The Australian Institute found setting such a limit would go unnoticed by the vast majority of Australian taxpayers.

But those people on an income of over $1 million deduct an average of $12,657 for the management of their tax affairs.

It compares with the average $378 deducted for tax advice.

However, the average of those earning over $1 million but not paying any tax spend over $1 million on tax advice a year.

"This loophole is legal but when it is being exploited in such an excessive way it probably doesn't pass the pub test for most taxpayers," the institute's senior economist Matt Grudnoff says.