Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) is calling for urgent improvements to Online Services for Agents (OSfA). In a submission to the Tax Ombudsman’s review of OSfA, CA ANZ highlights the need to give tax agents better access to client information and data, and to make it easier for messages to go to the right person in Practice Mail.

OSfA is a vital part of Australia’s tax administrative framework and the preferred platform for tax agents to interact with the ATO. Its 24/7 availability helps agents resolve client tax matters quickly and cost-effectively. However, many tax agents find OSfA’s design and functionality do not meet their needs. As a result, agents often rely on the registered agent phone line (RAPL) for simple administrative tasks, which increases workload and delays for agents, their clients and the ATO.

These issues stem from OSfA’s ‘user pays’ delivery model, which depends on digital service providers (DSPs) to adopt or enhance ATO features in their software. DSPs may not prioritise these enhancements due to competing business needs or challenges meeting security and quality standards.

CA ANZ members have consistently called for OSfA to offer more up-to-date information, greater transparency and improved functionality. Members want to have client information at their fingertips, rather than at the end of a phone call.

A recent CA ANZ survey found that members and the ATO share the goal of ensuring tax lodgements and tax debts are made and processed in a timely manner. To achieve this, members need better digital tools. CA ANZ has identified several member priorities for improvement from the survey:

• Easy-to-generate reports that identify clients who:
  • are in the pay-as-you-go instalment (PAYGI) system, have received a director penalty notice (DPN), or have Taxable Payments Annual Report (TPAR) or Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) obligations.
  • have outstanding tax debts, with daily updates on amounts payable, due dates, debt sources, payment plan details (if any), and the ability to transfer amounts between an entity and/or a group of entities’ tax accounts.
  • are affected by new ATO initiatives or communications, such as reinstated debts on hold, FBT reviews or potential rental income.
• A regularly updated status tracker for lodgements, showing progress, expected completion dates and reasons for any delays.
• Improved two-way digital communication in Practice Mail between the ATO and tax agents that makes it easy for agents to direct queries and manage responses with:
  
  • Messages that clearly identify the relevant client and matter
  • Clearer menu options and better routing of queries to the right ATO team
  • ATO responses sent to both the original sender and the practice inbox.