An investigation into the conduct of a registered tax (financial) adviser showed that they had failed to meet their personal tax obligations as required under the Code of Professional Conduct (Code). These failures included:

• outstanding taxation debts of over $500,000 accrued over several years with no payment arrangement in place

• outstanding BAS for four quarterly periods.

The tax (financial) adviser had further failed to disclose their outstanding personal tax obligations in their registration application.

The Board Conduct Committee (BCC) also found that the tax practitioner did not meet our professional indemnity (PI) insurance requirements and failed to respond to our correspondence.

Considering the above factors, the BCC decided to terminate the tax (financial) adviser’s registration and impose a five-year ban on them from applying for registration.