A trust account is a specific type of financial account where money is held for the benefit of another.

You should keep money that you hold on behalf of your client in a separate trust account and not in your business account that you use to run your business. For example, these monies could be tax refunds you have received on your client’s behalf or monies that have been given to you for a specific purpose by your clients, such as paying their tax liabilities.

It is possible that an actual or a perceived conflict of interest may arise in this situation where you act for both parties who have separated. Generally, you should disclose the conflict of interest and receive a waiver from both parties in relation to the conflict. If a waiver cannot be obtained, you should decline to act for one of the parties. Usually, declining to act is the safest option where you are uncertain. For further information refer to Managing conflicts of interest.

If you gain a financial incentive by recommending the purchase of an accounting software or subscription to your clients, you have a conflict of interest. So you must disclose to your clients the amount of commission or discount you would receive from these purchases to satisfy your Code of Professional Conduct (Code) obligations (Code item 5). You also must ensure that you are complying with Code item 4, by acting in the best interests of your client by recommending the purchase of the accounting software.

Code item 6 relates to keeping all your client’s information confidential. While it is important that you protect the information that will lead to identifying who the client is, it is equally important to protect any other information of your client. Code item 6 prohibits you from disclosing any information relating to the affairs of your client to a third party without your client’s explicit permission unless there is a legal duty to do so. 

For further information refer to Confidentiality of client information.

Where there is an overriding legal obligation to disclose information, you should inform your client of the notice and subsequent disclosure of information. You do not need your client’s permission in these circumstances. If you are unsure if there is a legal requirement you should seek independent legal advice.

Code item 9 requires that you must take reasonable care in ascertaining a client’s state of affairs, to the extent that ascertaining the state of those affairs is relevant to a statement you are making or a thing you are doing on behalf of the client.

If you are preparing BAS for your client and the client wants to claim GST for some expenses, you must take reasonable care to ensure that the client is entitled to claim those expenses. Where you have grounds to doubt the information provided by a client, you must take positive steps and make reasonable enquiries to satisfy yourself as to the completeness and/or accuracy of that information.

In this scenario, you would not be required to see all individual invoices, unless there are grounds to doubt the information provided by the client. To satisfy yourself, it may be appropriate to review a sample of the invoices to ensure that what your client has told you is correct.

For further information including some case scenarios, refer to Reasonable care.

Tax agents with a R&D condition should complete at least 45 hours of CPE over a 3-year CPE period, with a minimum of 5 hours each year.

Recognising the stressful environment tax practitioners operate in, we have included educational mental health and wellbeing activities as an approved activity in our CPE policy. While it is not mandatory, we encourage you to take some time to look after your health and wellbeing.

Our CPE policy allows you to complete educative mental health and well-being activities up to a maximum of 10% of the required CPE hours.

Health and wellbeing CPE activities could include attending webinars about managing your mental health, stress and self-care. These activities can also include training and webinars you attend to support the mental health and wellbeing of your staff.

You can complete these activities run by registered organisations that are qualified to provide training and informational sessions in these areas such as Beyond Blue, Black Dog Institute, etc.

We expect you to use the flexibility of your CPE period (generally 3 years) in managing any extenuating circumstances when completing your minimum CPE. In situations where you are unable to complete the minimum level of CPE during a year, you do not need to notify us at the time but you should exercise your professional judgement and keep appropriate records of such circumstances.

When we audit your CPE activities, we would expect you to demonstrate to us that you have attempted to use the flexibility of your CPE period in completing CPE that meets our requirements.

There is no set percentage allowed as a relief in completing the minimum CPE.

CPE activities provided by a recognised tax or BAS agent association can count towards your CPE for TPB purposes, provided the activities are relevant to the tax agent or BAS services you provide. You should be able to demonstrate a sufficient connection between the activity and the tax agent or BAS services you provide.

For further information refer to our CPE explanatory paper.