Yes, we will take into account lodgement due dates where the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has granted an extension.

Yes, you need to disclose any outstanding tax obligations (such as an ATO debt) in your annual declaration or registration renewal form to provide assurance to us that you are meeting your personal tax obligations.

As a part of our support for tax practitioners affected by Coronavirus (COVID-19), we have temporarily waived the requirement to complete an annual declaration. If your annual declaration is due on or before 30 June 2021, you do not need to complete it until 2022 or 2023 (if your registration renewal is due in 2022). This an automatic process and you do not need to contact us regarding an extension to lodge your annual declaration.

You must, however, continue to lodge your registration renewal application before it expires to remain registered with the TPB. You must also continue to meet other registration obligations around professional indemnity insurance, fit and proper requirements and personal tax obligations.

Unless the former tax agent has a lien (i.e. a right to hold the property of another as security for the performance of an obligation or the payment of a debt) and the client has given consent to their former tax agent to pass on their information to the new tax agent, the former tax agent may breach of the Code of Professional Conduct (Code), including an obligation to act with honesty and integrity. See more on confidentiality of client information.

To comply with Code item 6, you will need to ensure that you have your client's permission if you are disclosing client information to third party IT providers. See our Information Sheet for more information on obtaining client permission.

Only if you have your client’s permission to do so. Otherwise (and unless there is a legal obligation to do so), you cannot disclose client information to another registered tax practitioner that is not within the same practice (that is, a third party).

A third party means any entity other than the client and you, the registered tax practitioner. This includes entities:

• engaged to outsource work, for example another registered tax practitioner, a legal practitioner or a contractor

• related to the client and/or the tax practitioner

• within the same service trust structure, unless the client is defined (for example, in the engagement letter) as the whole structure

• maintaining offsite data storage systems, including ‘cloud storage’.

Yes, it does. A third party is anyone other than you and your client. You can only disclose information relating to your client’s affairs to a third party with your client’s permission or if there is a legal duty to do so. Therefore, an example of where you can pass on client information to the ATO without the client’s permission is where the ATO has requested the information pursuant to the Taxation Administration Act 1953.

While engagement letters are not a requirement under the Code, we highly recommend using them, even for existing clients. It is at your discretion whether to use engagement letters, but if you do, we also strongly recommend reviewing them annually or updating the letter when there are changes in the services provided.

In the absence of a written agreement you are at risk if your client denies any implied agreement. We recommend you have a letter of engagement in place.

Yes, Code item 3 states that a registered tax practitioner must account for money or other property received on trust from or on behalf of their clients. Examples of money received on trust may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• subject to the terms of a retainer, money held or received in advance by the registered tax practitioner for the purpose of settling or meeting liabilities

• client tax refunds

• money paid to the registered tax practitioner for the purpose of seeking specialist advice.

The TPB cannot act on complaints regarding the failure of a tax practitioner to return client documents because these matters are commercial disputes and better dealt with by other bodies. See our complaints page for more information. 

It also important to understand that in some instances, a tax practitioner may exercise a 'right of lien' over property upon which they have expended labour and made more valuable. This means they may hold client property as security until the outstanding professional fees or charges have been settled. Our Information Sheet has more information.

Tax practitioners have the right to put their cases to the TPB’s Conduct or Disciplinary committee, who will consider all the facts and circumstances of the case.

Alternatively, you can appeal certain decisions made by the TPB to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT). This includes decisions relating to the suspension or termination of registration. For more information about this review process, refer to the AAT website.

The software training will count towards your CPE as long as it is relevant to the services you provide as a registered tax practitioner.

It’s important to note you must exercise your professional judgment in selecting relevant activities to count towards your continuing professional education (CPE). 

Yes, you can still claim CPE for watching our recordings as long as it is relevant to the tax practitioner services you provide. You can view our recordings on our YouTube channel.

Yes, the podcasts may count for CPE if they are relevant to the tax practitioner services you provide and it maintains, develops, or promotes your skills, knowledge, or attributes.

This comes down to taking reasonable care. Code item 9 states that you must take reasonable care in ascertaining a client’s state of affairs.

Code item 9 doesn’t require you to audit, examine or review books and records or other source documents to independently verify the accuracy of all information supplied by your clients. However, you cannot automatically discharge your responsibility by simply accepting what you have been told by your clients.

Where a statement provided by a client seems credible and you have no basis to doubt the information supplied, you could accept the statement provided by the client without further checking.

If the information does not seem credible, it is inconsistent with past claims, is from a new client or there has been a change in the law, you should consider undertaking a more thorough check to meet your reasonable care requirements. 

We are currently contacting tax practitioners who have expired professional indemnity (PI) insurance policies. In the absence of the annual declaration you need to login to your My profile account to update your details and the details of any of your associated entities. If you have already done this, you can disregard the SMS/email correspondence. 

All registered tax agents, BAS agents and tax (financial) advisers must maintain PI insurance that meets our requirements during their period of registration, and you must be able to demonstrate this in order to be eligible for renewal of your registration.  

If you do not charge a fee or receive a reward you will not need to have your own PI insurance policy in order to meet our requirements. However, if you are an employee or contractor, you will be required to provide us with the name of your employer or principal and their registration number.

Regardless of whether you charge a fee or receive a reward, you have to notify us of how you meet our PI insurance requirements.

Ultimately, determining whether a tax practitioner has complied with their obligations under Code items 9 and 10 will be a question of fact. This means each situation will need to be considered on a case-by-case basis having regard to the specific facts and circumstances. 

A good question to ask yourself is “what would my peers and colleagues do in this situation?”. 

Ultimately, it is the registered tax agent who is responsible. That is why supervision and control of your employees and anyone providing services on their behalf is so important.

You are not required to check every return - periodic spot checks may be appropriate, but the most important thing is to ensure you have appropriate processes in place first.

For more information see our Supervisory Arrangements information.

Only registered tax practitioners can invoice clients for tax agent or BAS service. A bookkeeper under the supervision of a registered BAS agent is not registered and therefore cannot invoice a client for BAS services. Any invoicing of a client in these circumstances must be done directly by the registered BAS agent to be covered by the insurance policy of that agent.

If an unregistered individual invoiced a client directly, we would consider this individual to be making representations as a registered tax practitioner.