A group of industry bodies is due to meet with Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones this week over concerns about mandatory reporting of client information required under new obligations added to the tax agent code of conduct, according to one of the organisations involved.
The Institute of Financial Professionals Australia (IFPA) stated Jones had made contact late last week with 10 industry bodies to organise a collective meeting to discuss their concerns regarding some of the new obligations added to the Code of Professional Conduct overseen by the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB).
“Opting for the personal touch, the Assistant Treasurer yesterday emailed a letter to the joint professional bodies directly, including IFPA, to foreshadow a roundtable meeting next week to discuss the concerns we have raised about the legal obligation to report a client’s false or misleading statement to the TPB or the ATO without the client’s consent and the requirement to disclose ‘any matter’ to all and sundry that might influence someone’s decision to engage you to provide them with tax agent services,” IFPA told members late last week.
These two obligations are key concerns of the joint bodies, which have noted there was no definition of ‘any matter’ provided and no guidance had been issued on it.
“We plan to participate in next week’s meeting with the aim of reversing the ‘dob in’ overreach and for the law to clarify where the boundaries for the disclosure of ‘any matter’ lie,” IPFA added.
“The Assistant Treasurer’s letter tries to reassure us that personal matters, such as practitioners’ health and well-being, sexual orientation or religious beliefs, fall outside the scope of disclosable matters as they do not relate to a practitioner’s capacity to provide a quality service.
“Good to hear, but that’s not the way the law is currently drafted.”
The changes to the code have been an issue of contention since they were first proposed, with the industry bodies highlighting the lack of consultation and the speed at which the new obligations were being implemented.
The additions were signed into the Tax Agent Services (Code of Professional Conduct) Determination 2024 by Jones as part of his ministerial powers on 1 July.
They were originally due to apply from 1 August, but were pushed back by Jones to 1 January 2025 for firms with more than 100 employees and to 1 July 2025 for firms with less than that number.
As part of the transitional change, tax agent firms had to make genuine steps towards compliance during this period, but IFPA noted that requirement has since been dropped.
“The government has dropped the requirement for practitioners to be taking reasonable steps to implement the determination. This is welcome news. We are strongly opposed to members being required to comply with a set of rules that have yet to be finalised.”
The joint bodies are the Australian Bookkeepers Association, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, CPA Australia, Financial Advice Association of Australia, Institute of Certified Bookkeepers, Institute of Financial Professionals Australia, Institute of Public Accountants, National Tax and Accountants’ Association, SMSF Association and The Tax Institute.
