A tax agent had lodged 27 applications on behalf of their clients and related entities with a State government for payments under its business support fund that provided grants to support small businesses suffering the impacts of COVID-19. The agent provided falsified business activity statements (BAS) that did not match the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) records, to support the grant applications.

The tax agent further received these grant payments into the bank account of a related company (which was also a registered tax agent) and failed to pass on significant amounts of grant payments to their clients in a timely manner, or at all. There were significant delays in instances where the agent passed on the grant payments to clients.

The tax agent also lodged false BAS for 2 clients in order to claim the Australian Government’s cash flow boost payments that the agent knew, or ought to have known, that the clients were not entitled to.

The tax agent further did not maintain professional indemnity insurance that meets our requirements for 3 months.

Based on the above conduct, the Board Conduct Committee (BCC) determined that the tax agent breached the Code of Professional Conduct (Code) (Code items 1, 3 and 13).

The BCC determined that the tax agent ceased to be a fit and proper person to remain registered and terminated the agent’s registration. Taking into account the seriousness of the conduct, the BCC also banned the agent from applying for registration for the maximum period of 5 years.