Following an investigation, the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) decided to terminate the registrations of an individual BAS agent and a tax agent company which they were a joint director of, after they were found to have breached 4 items of the Code of Professional Conduct (Code). The breaches were so egregious they resulted in both entities receiving a 2-year ban from re-applying for registration. 

The BAS agent in their capacity as a director of the tax agent company breached Code item 1 for failing to act honestly and with integrity when they added a director to the tax agent company who was previously found not to be a fit and proper person by the TPB. Both entities deliberately failed to notify the TPB of this appointment and provided false and misleading responses to the TPB’s enquiries. In addition, they accessed Australian Taxation Office taxpayer records without obtaining authorisation from the taxpayers.

The BAS agent breached Code item 2 when they failed to comply with taxation laws in the conduct of their personal affairs. The agent incurred significant debts through director penalty notices for Pay as you go withholding and GST. 

The tax agent company also breached Code item 2 when it failed to lodge multiple income tax returns, business activity statements, instalment activity statements and did not pay its integrated client account debt by the due date.

The BAS agent and tax agent company also breached:

• Code item 3 by failing to account to a client for Commonwealth funds received on a trust; and 
• Code item 9 by failing to take reasonable care in ascertaining the state of affairs for 3 clients by relying on insufficient, inappropriate or no information to determine the clients’ employer, salary and wage income and tax withheld.

The Board Conduct Committee (BCC) considered the repeated and serious misconduct and determined the BAS agent ceased to meet the registration requirement that they be a fit and proper person. Accordingly, the BCC also found the tax agent company no longer met the requirement that each of its directors were a fit and proper person.