No, you don’t need to be a permanent resident to be registered with us as long as you meet the registration requirements, including qualifications and experience. You will also need to satisfy our proof of identity check. 

To become a registered tax agent, you must satisfy one of 6 qualifications and experience options outlined in the Tax Agent Services Regulations 2022 (TASR) (items 201 to 206) depending on your qualifications and experience. See our handy table that summarises the requirements.

Yes, you may provide services to a client without charging a fee.

Yes, the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (TASA) does not prohibit registered tax practitioners from providing services to clients convicted of a serious criminal offence.

If you provide tax or BAS agent services for a fee or other reward, you must be registered unless an exemption applies to you. 

If you provide tax or BAS agent services through a company (including a trustee company) or partnership, the entity must be registered with us. A company or partnership is also required to have one or more registered individual agents to provide tax or BAS agent services on its behalf and to carry out supervisory arrangements.

For further information on the registration requirements, refer to who needs to register.

Depending upon your qualifications and experience, you may have a 'condition' imposed on your registration. A condition limits the scope of advice or services you can provide or limits your services to a particular area of taxation law.

If you have qualifications and relevant experience only in particular areas of taxation law, you may still be eligible for a conditional registration (provided all the other registration criteria are met).

For a list of the types of conditions that we have imposed refer to conditions of registration.

Yes. However, it should be noted that if you are a registered tax practitioner with a conditional registration you are only able to supervise entities to provide services that you yourself are permitted to perform under the conditions placed on your registration.

If an applicant is relying on experience gained under the supervision and control of a registered tax agent, you as the registered agent must verify the information they have provided in their statement of relevant experience. You must also comment on their ability to provide tax agent or BAS agent services to a competent standard. 

You can refer to our information on supervisory arrangements for more detail.

Generally, your CPE period will begin on the date you are registered and ends on the date your registration expires. 

However, if you are a member of a recognised professional association, you can elect to align your CPE period with the CPE period of your professional association. This means that you can elect to have your CPE period based on a calendar year, financial year or the anniversary of your association membership start date.

Check out our guidance, it provides clarification about the CPE period.

Generally, no there isn’t a reduced CPE requirement for semi-retired tax practitioners. This is because it’s important for tax practitioners who do not work full-time or are semi-retired to still maintain their knowledge and skills to be able to provide competent services to their clients, regardless of the number of hours they work. However, we’ve spread the CPE hours requirement over a 3-year period to provide flexibility and cater for various circumstances of tax practitioners. 

Check out our requirements to see what activities you can include as CPE.

Yes, your recognised professional association’s CPE records can be used as evidence for TPB record keeping purposes. CPE activities undertaken must:

• be relevant to the tax or BAS agent services you provide
• be provided by persons or organisations with suitable qualifications and/or practical experience in the subject area
• meet our minimum amount of CPE hours.

No, you are not required to notify us. 

If you are experiencing difficulties or have an extenuating circumstance that prevents you from completing the required number of CPE hours you can submit an extenuating circumstances request for relief. 

For further information and examples, refer to the extenuating circumstances section in our explanatory paper.

Unfortunately, you are not able to carry over or bank your CPE hours. To ensure relevant knowledge and skills are maintained, a minimum level of relevant CPE is required to be completed each year.

A tax practitioner with a research and development (R&D) condition on their registration is required to complete 45 hours of CPE for a 3-year registration, with a minimum of 5 hours each year.

The easiest way to find your registration expiry date is through the TPB Register. You can also find it by logging into your My Profile account.

Yes, the amount of relevant experience required for registration or renewal depends on the relevant Regulation item in the TASR. You do not have to complete a SRE form to demonstrate your relevant experience when renewing your registration. However, in the online renewal form you must confirm you meet the required relevant experience to renew your registration.

If you register as a company or partnership, you also need to have a sufficient number of registered individuals who carry out supervisory arrangements on behalf of the business. This means your entity must have an adequate number of registered individual tax practitioners to:

• provide tax agent services to a competent standard, and 
• carry out supervisory arrangements on behalf of the entity. 

For example, if you operate your business through a company, the company will need to be registered and you will either need to be registered as an individual as well, or the company will need to have other registered individuals who can carry out supervisory arrangements on its behalf.

We strongly encourage you to make a complaint using our complaints form. 

It is also important to be aware that from 1 July 2024 new breach reporting requirements require tax agents to notify us if they have reasonable grounds to believe that another registered tax practitioner has breached the Code and that breach is a significant breach. 

In the coming weeks we will be releasing draft guidance on the additional breach reporting obligations for public consultation. We will notify registered tax practitioners when it is released.

If you suspect a client is insolvent, we recommend referring them to the Australian Financial Security Authority.

If you suspect someone is providing tax agent or BAS services, or advertising the provision of these services, without being registered, please make a complaint via our online complaints form.

Under the new breach reporting obligations that come into effect on 1 July 2024, tax practitioners will be required to report significant breaches by other tax practitioners. We will be issuing guidance on the new obligations soon and aim to address some of the concerns tax practitioners may have in this guidance.

There will be no change to this process. You must advise us of your professional indemnity (PI) insurance within 14 days of receiving notification of your registration and at the time of applying for renewal.

You must also update your details whenever there is a change in your policy, including every time the policy is renewed. You can update your policy details via My Profile.

No, if you do not charge a fee or receive a reward (for example, you are an employee or contractor) you are not required 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.

You can use our update legal or practice name form online to make this change. 

Importantly, you must notify us within 30 days after you become, or ought to have become, aware of any changes to your registration details.

There are 2 DE forms available on our website:

• the 'Disqualifying events declaration and consent form’; and
• an online application form, accessed by logging in to My Profile.

The online form is our application form for seeking approval to employ or use a disqualified entity to provide tax agent services on your behalf. 

The Disqualifying events declaration and consent form is evidence of you having undertaken due diligence when engaging entities to provide tax agent services on your behalf. It also provides for a disqualified entity’s declaration of consent for you to seek our approval, and their notification in writing to you that they are a disqualified entity. 

If you are outsourcing or offshoring, you must take reasonable steps to ensure sufficient IT security controls are in place, for both you and the outsourced service provider.

There are a number of controls that could be employed to assist in maintaining and protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data to ensure that information is not disclosed beyond the scope of your client’s consent, such as an appropriate confidentiality agreement between you and your outsourced provider, or other appropriate protocols, such as:

• use of a secured website and encrypted network traffic
• security credentials
• access controls ensuring unauthorised persons do not have access to data
• standardised reporting
• audit trails
• appropriate segregation of duties
• approval and review of data changes.

Refer to our guidance for more information on outsourcing and offshoring.

You should explain to your client that company directors are required by law to apply for a director identification number (director ID). It's a criminal offence if directors do not apply on time and penalties may apply. If the client is still reluctant, you should decline to act for them.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is responsible for enforcing director ID offences refer to their website for more information.

The client-to-agent linking process was introduced by the ATO to further strengthening the security of their online services to help protect you and your clients against fraud and identity-related theft.

You can refer to the ATO website for me information.