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The Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) will focus on increasing the cooperation between the accounting bodies in 2020, with a view to form a single voice when taking recommendations to the government.
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‘A unified voice in 2020’
30 December 2019
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The IPA will push for further cooperation between the accounting bodies in 2020, making sure that all three are on the same page when it comes to policies affecting the accounting profession and, by extension, their clients, said Damien Moore, president of the IPA Group, on the sidelines of the IPA national congress in Adelaide.
“When we’ve got that unified voice, it makes it much easier to advocate for members, and I think that’s been lost a little bit in the past, everyone was doing their own thing, but when we all come together we can certainly have a much better voice and be listened to a little bit more from government point of view,” Mr Moore said.
In late October, Australia’s three major professional accounting bodies re-established the joint accounting bodies alliance in a bid to campaign against the regulatory quagmire that has stifled accountants from providing holistic advice.
In the first show of solidarity since the three bodies met formally in 2012, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, CPA Australia and IPA announced they had reforged the joint accounting bodies alliance, calling for a more efficient regulatory framework for advisory services.
Mr Moore explained that from the IPA’s perspective, they’ve been petitioning for a tripartite alliance for several years, having recognised that a unified front will be far more effective with government.
“If we’re going to present to government with a range of different initiatives, we want to all be doing it on the same page as a group because it makes it easy for government as well.
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“If they’re only getting one set of information, like if I was sitting there and from a government point of view and say, ‘Well, this makes it much easier for us to look at that information and digest it.’”
As for the key objectives that the bodies will be pursuing in Canberra, Mr Moore explained that the main one will obviously be the overhaul of the frameworks that regulate how financial and tax advice is provided in Australia.
Mr Moore said: “I guess, we can’t go past obviously where we’re at, at the moment, with the whole accountants’ exemption side of things. I mean, that’s obviously a main priority.
“In terms of members themselves, they certainly want that advocacy to be, to be strong and they want to know that their membership subscriptions are going towards that voice, and that voice can be with all the key stakeholders.
“Certainly, the ATO seems to be one that they want us to adopt a pretty strong voice on. And that’ll be interesting to see how that proceeds.”
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