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BAS agents will soon be allowed to legally advise on more superannuation guarantee charge services as the Tax Practitioners Board looks to expand the scope of BAS services.
TPB looks to expand BAS agent services
17 June 2020
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7 minute read
The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) has now issued draft Tax Agent Services (Specific BAS Services No. 2) Instrument 2020, which seeks to expand the scope of BAS services to include additional services relating to the superannuation guarantee charge (SGC) that are not currently covered by the current legislative instrument.
While BAS agents may already provide some services relating to the SGC, including advising on and preparing an SGC statement, the new legislative instrument looks to expand on what the TPB views as a BAS service.
The changes will allow BAS agents to lawfully advise about an SGC liability, including the calculation of the SGC and preparing the SGC statement; and be an authorised contact for payment arrangements, requesting penalty remissions and for any audit or review activity undertaken by the Commissioner of Taxation relating to SGC accounts.
BAS agents will also be allowed to advise about the offsetting of late payments of superannuation contributions against the SGC, including completing the late payment offset election section of the SGC statement; representing a client in their dealings with the Commissioner of Taxation, including the lodgement of SGC statements; being an authorised contact in relation to the superannuation guarantee and SGC accounts, and accessing the superannuation guarantee and SGC accounts in online services.
The move comes after the TPB announced it was reviewing BAS services in March, noting that BAS agents assisting clients with the superannuation guarantee amnesty would not face any compliance action.
The TPB said the change came after it identified in early 2019 that BAS agents representing a client in their dealings with the Commissioner of Taxation were limited to services insofar as they related to a payroll function or payments to contractors, and therefore, did not extend to representing a client in their dealings with the Commissioner of Taxation in relation to the SGC.
BAS agent services were also recently expanded to allow agents to legally assist clients with the JobKeeper payment and cash-flow support measures in response to COVID-19.
The changes will commence on the day after it has been registered, with the TPB currently inviting stakeholder feedback on the draft legislative instrument by 13 July.
Check out the draft legislative instrument and the accompanying explanatory statement.
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- Keep it simple by abolishing BAS agent status by a specific date and requiring all BAS agents to gain full Registered Tax Agent status prior to that specific date. Creation of the BAS agent status was the worst mistake made by the government for our profession in years. I have been finding that many BAS agents keep wanting more and more for less and less. The status of Registered Tax Agent should have to apply to all agents in the broader profession.0
- So long as BAS agents fees go up given more work they can do & bridge the massive gap between $140 vs $700 & only half the CPD of tax agents. Increase in CPD requirements for them should be considered too.
The bookeepers keep complaining when someone posts about accountants & workloads "what about us" so lets bring them more equal in every way then - fees & CPD0 - The cynic in me says that the TPB has done their budgets and worked out they need to charge more. Tax Agents are already screaming at the high fees they're being charged so why not provide BAS Agents with more benefits and then charge them more? Perfect - let's do it!0
- More opportunities to fix up somebody's unqualified, experienced or trained work. It is a win-win except for the client.0
- As a bookkeeper / BAS Agent - I've had to fix up "qualified" Accountant's work. BAS Agents are qualified, trained and have to have experience and CPD. Being a Tax Agent or Accountant doesn't make you infinitely more qualified than a BAS Agent - our areas of expertise are same same but different. And ultimately, as long as our clients are our priority we all win.0
- you are not wrong. highly questionable ethics to call an entire group that is part of the accounting profession unqualified. usually comes from people who haven't got the confidence in their own ability or value their service offering, suffer from low self-esteem, and like to project that unfairly onto others.
probably needs to review APES 110, 115.1A1; 115.2(a)(b)0- Your not wrong, we are BAS agents but are mostly made up of CPA qualified accountants. The amount of times we have to clean up a tax agents work is just as often as the other way around. Generalising and stereotyping is extremely un-professional.0
- So the TPB wants to give the BAS agents (who don't have to have any formal training or professional body recognition) more powers, but take powers away from tax agents and require us to do more education. I'm in the wrong game here0
- BAS Agents do have formal qualifications and experience before being able to apply to the TPB. Membership to our Professional bodies is also strongly encouraged. CPD is still required.
Also bookkeepers / BAS Agents usually have more contact points with the clients during the year (as in they are updating their accounts on a weekly / fortnightly / monthly basis).0
- As a chartered accountant, on balance, I think this is a positive move. The risk is that bookkeepers, who generally charge less than accountants, will take traditional compliance work away from accountants and then expand their offerings into areas where the rules are a little grey. My view is that the way forward for accountants is to focus on designing, setting up and implementing automated value reporting type systems. Even small business clients can benefit greatly from streamlined automated type systems that produce basic but meaningful financial information. Bookkeepers are a risk from such systems so it is only fair they have other avenues to expand their services into.0
