A registered tax agent failed to bring his personal tax affairs up to date, despite a Board order to do so. 

A further review and investigations into the tax agent’s conduct showed the following information:

• The tax agent had a combined income tax, business activity statement (BAS) and superannuation guarantee charge (SGC) debt of over $500,000.

• The above debts had been accumulating over an extended period of time.

• The tax agent had not entered into a payment arrangement with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to settle these debts.

• There were five quarterly BAS lodgements outstanding.

The Board Conduct Committee (BCC) found that the tax agent had breached the Code of Profession Conduct (Code) as he:

• failed to comply with the BCC’s previous order to bring his personal tax affairs up to date (Code item 14)

• failed to comply with the taxation laws in the conduct of his personal affairs (Code item 2).

The BCC determined that the tax agent ceased to meet the registration requirement of being a fit and proper person.

The BCC decided to terminate the tax agent’s registration and imposed a four-year ban on the agent from applying for registration.