The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) has admitted it did not meet all of its performance expectations in relation to complaints and investigations in its 2020-21 annual report, however reaffirmed it remains vigilant of practitioners “bringing down the repute of others”.
In its 2020-21 annual report, the TPB provided an outline of how complaints were handled over the period.
According to the report, the number of matters presented to the board conduct committee (BCC) in 2020-21 came in at 170. This represents a 47 per cent drop from the 2019-20 period, where 320 matters were presented to the BCC.
The TPB clarified that the decrease was “partly due to the discontinuation of projects targeting non-compliance in areas such as continuing professional education, debt and lodgement, and annual declaration lodgement, which had been active in 2019-20”.
As a result of the matters presented, the committee terminated the registration of 75 tax practitioners over 2020-21. Further, it suspended the registration of 11 tax practitioners and imposed other sanctions, including orders and formal cautions, because of code breaches.
Commenting off the back of the report, TPB chair Ian Klug AM said the period in question proved to be “challenging for all Australians”.
“While we did not drop our guard during these challenges, and we maintained our compliance programs to address those practitioners who represented the highest risk of poor behaviour, we did not meet all of our performance expectations in relation to complaints and investigations for the period,” Mr Klug said.
“We faced ongoing challenges with limitations in available data sets, which impacted our ability to drive our proactive work program and deliver effective and timely outcomes under our Coordinated Compliance Strategy. We continue to work productively with the ATO to build our data-sharing agreements so our objectives are met.
“For those few practitioners who continue to bring down the repute of others we remained vigilant in our approach. Despite the great work by the majority of tax practitioners, our Board Conduct Committee reviewed approximately 170 cases of practitioners failing to meet required standards of behaviour or practitioners failing to meet registration requirements.
“In some instances, we were required to not only terminate a tax practitioners’ registration but also impose the maximum ban possible.”
Mr Klug noted that going forward, the TPB will continue to invest in and improve its data analytic capabilities “to drive our compliance work, investigating those practitioners who choose to do the wrong thing, while supporting the majority that continue to uphold the high expectations of the profession and the integrity of our tax system”.
“There is more that can be done, and we look forward to working with our regulatory partners to enhance our compliance program with the aim of ensuring that tax practitioners remain a positive influence on the tax compliance of their clients,” Mr Klug said.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that 140 matters were presented to the board conduct committee (BCC) in 2020-21. The figure has been amended to the correct amount of 170.
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