Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) has written a submission in response to the six draft guidance documents issued by the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) regarding the new Tax Agent Services (Code of Professional Conduct) Determination 2024 (the Determination), which introduces eight new Code obligations.

The draft guidance documents considered are:

• Upholding and promoting the ethical standards of the tax profession (TPB(I) D56/2024)
• False or misleading statements (TPB(I) D57/2024)
• Managing conflicts of interest when undertaking activities for government and maintaining confidentiality in dealings with government (TPB(I) D58/2024)
• Obligation to keep proper client records of tax agent services provided (TPB(I) D59/2024)
• Supervision, competency and quality management under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (TPB(I) D60/2024)
• Keeping your clients informed (TPB(I) D61/2024)

The six TPB draft guidance documents broadly address the technical operation of the new obligations and provide tax practitioners some insights into the way in which the TPB will interpret the law and approach its role as regulator, as well as its compliance expectations of practitioners.

CA ANZ welcomes the TPB’s factsheet which can be used as a means of complying with the disclosure obligations in section 45.

That said, improved case studies and more detailed factsheets would assist registered tax practitioners to comply with the obligations. CA ANZ’s detailed submission outlines such improvements, identifies areas which need to be amended or clarified, and highlights some gaps in the guidance which need to be addressed.

The submission recognises that many CAs feel that there is a “disconnect” between the somewhat soothing public utterances of Board members and officials (i.e. in recent webinars, presentations etc) and the worrying breadth of the wording used in the Determination. It also recognises that many CAs are concerned about how the new Code obligations add to possible breaches which would have arisen under other, pre-existing code items and whether they will face more severe sanctions for breaching multiple code items relating to the same failing.

The draft guidance is just the start of much more collaborative work which needs to be done by the TPB with stakeholders before the 1 July 2025 start-date which applies to practices which had 100 or fewer employees.