We recommend you reconfirm or review the arrangements with your clients annually for recurring or ongoing engagements through an engagement letter. A letter of engagement will help establish a clear understanding of the terms of engagement and assist in avoiding any uncertainty and misunderstandings, especially over fees and scope of services to be provided. A letter of engagement will also help you comply with your obligations under the Code of Professional Conduct (Code).

We strongly recommend you have a letter of engagement with your clients to clearly set out terms and services to be provided and the fees involved. This will help avoid misunderstandings with clients relating to services provided or fees.

No, section 45 of the Code Determination does not mandate issuing of engagement letters to clients. This obligation only requires you to inform your current and prospective clients about specific matters in writing in a prominent, clear and unambiguous way. This requirement is intended to provide flexibility, allowing you to choose your preferred way to advise clients. For further information see our guidance.

We work closely with state and federal government regulators as required in carrying out our investigations. We are subject to strict confidentiality requirements which govern the types of information (and circumstances in which) we can share with third parties, including government bodies.

Yes, you are required to undertake proof of identity on both a client and their representative on an ongoing basis, as appropriate and sighting the required evidence as set out in our guidance.

No, we do not recommend that you keep originals or copies of identity documents as it increases your risk of being the target of fraudulent activity. We require you to keep a file note or record (for example, a completed checklist) about the checks that you have undertaken as soon as you complete POI.

For guidance on what information this record should contain, refer to the ‘Record keeping’ section in our guidance.

Tax practitioners must comply with their obligations under the Code of Professional Conduct (Code) when passing on a client’s information to another tax practitioner – in particular, Code item 6. Code item 6 requires tax practitioners not to disclose information relating to a client without the client’s permission. Tax practitioners must obtain their client’s permission before passing on their TFN details to another tax practitioner.

It is a matter for you to decide where you want to keep a record of your assessment not to undertake POI on a long term client. We only require you to make and retain a record of your assessment addressing the matters listed at paragraph 22 in our guidance.

When using the registered tax practitioner symbol, you must use the appropriate symbol for the type of registration and with the relevant registration number. For example, if you are practising as a company tax agent, you must use a tax agent symbol with the company’s registration number displayed on it.

No. However, being a voting member of a recognised professional association (RPA) has its advantages, including providing an additional avenue to meet the qualifications and experience requirements to register with us.

The trustee of the trust – whether a company or an individual – will need to be registered with us if you wish to provide tax agent services through a trust structure.

If you are an eligible whistleblower, you may make a disclosure to an eligible recipient such as the ATO or TPB about tax misconduct. If you are not an eligible whistleblower, you can still make a tip-off to the ATO.

You may have some obligations under the Code Determination if you have been involved in the fraudulent transactions appearing in the client’s account, particularly if it involves the making of false or misleading statements. For further information about your obligations relating to false or misleading statements, see Code obligations when making or preparing statements.

The ATO provides the registered agent lodgement program to help you manage your workload. This allows you to progressively lodge your clients' obligations over the 12-month period. Where you or your clients experience exceptional or unforeseen circumstances which impact your ability to lodge on time you can apply for a lodgement deferral. Your request should be consistent with PS LA 2011/15 Lodgement obligations, due dates and deferrals. However, the ATO has seen an increase in lodgement deferral requests, and have begun to apply greater scrutiny of the requests consistency with PS LA 2011/15. Analysis has highlighted that some tax practitioner as:

• are routinely seeking the same deferrals for the same clients every year
• seek a deferral as a ‘just in case’, only to lodge well ahead of time anyway
• request deferrals because they are waiting on client information; and
• consistently seek deferrals for the same reason or just cut and paste the same information into different requests.

If the request does not meet PS LA 2011/15 it will be rejected. If you are dissatisfied with the decision, you can request an informal review. For more information, see Reviewing a lodgment deferral decision.

Unfortunately, we don’t have enough detail to specifically respond to this question. Generally, lodgement deferrals can help if you or your clients experience exceptional or unforeseen circumstances which affect your ability to lodge by the due date. For example, a serious illness, unexpected staff absences, natural or other disasters. If submitting a lodgement deferral request, you need to include detailed information to support the reason for your request. This includes:

• what the exceptional or unforeseen circumstances are that you, your practice or your clients are experiencing
• when those circumstances occurred, whether they are ongoing or when they were resolved
• how those circumstances have affected your ability to lodge by the due date; and
• why you are submitting the request after the lodgement due date (if applicable). 

This will allow the ATO to take those circumstances into consideration when assessing your request as per PS LA 2011/15. If sufficient information is not provided, we will be unable to assess your request and your request may be declined. For more information, see Lodgment program deferrals or visit ato.gov.au and search for QC34580.

Previously, registered agents needed to contact the ATO for a temporary lift of additional security measures so they could access pre-fill to complete and lodge the returns of locked ATO records. This tax time, the ATO removed the registered agent restrictions to pre-fill when a taxpayer is compromised. This means agents no longer need to phone the ATO to request access to pre-fill for compromised taxpayers for income tax returns from 2021-22 onwards. For access to pre-fill information for prior years, agents will need to contact the ATO.

There are a range of reasons why pre-fill reports may vary between downloads:

1. New or updated data being received from third parties – providers submit data at different times (some as late as 31 October), and the completeness of a report depends on when it’s downloaded.
2. Validation or matching issues being resolved – some data may not appear in a report due to ID matching issues or validation failures (data didn’t pass ATO checks). As these issues are resolved, subsequent downloads can change.
3. Reports can be accessed via Online Services for Agents and Practitioner Lodgment Service (PLS). While both generally return the same data, PLS includes additional data like myDeductions, which may cause slight differences.

For more information please visit the ATO website.

Most returns lodged via digital channels are processed within 2 weeks, however processing may take up to 30 calendars days. If additional information is required before processing can be finalised or the taxpayer has locked their record, the taxpayer may need to contact the ATO before any credit refunds will issue.

The disclosure of TFNs in correspondence is primarily to ensure clear identification of an entity. This is particularly important when corresponding with intermediaries that represent a large client base with multiple clients with the same or similar names. For tax practitioners, we are aware the process of redacting the TFNs before forwarding correspondence to their clients via non-secure channels such, as email can create manual work and does present challenges. Most correspondence is digitally recorded on the taxpayer record, and we encourage both tax practitioners and their clients to access correspondence via online services. However, there remain instances where paper letters that include the TFN are still issued. For this reason, we recommend TFN recipients review safeguards and precautions that can be taken to ensure the security of taxpayer information. For further information on how you can protect the security of TFNs see section 10 of The Privacy (Tax File Number) Rule 2015 and the protection of tax file number information.

Phone calls from the ATO don't show a number on caller ID. However, the ATO will never send unsolicited pre-recorded messages to your phone. If you think a phone call, SMS, voicemail, email or interaction on social media claiming to be from the ATO isn't genuine, don't engage with it. You should either:

• phone the ATO on 1800 008 540; or
• go to Verify or report a scam to see how to spot and report a scam.

You can stay up to date on the latest scam alerts by subscribing to the ATO’s general email updates. You can also check out the ATO’s FAQs.

The ATO is committed to supporting taxpayers who genuinely need it and will work with them to understand their situation and provide tailored help and assistance specific to their circumstances. If your client is experiencing financial difficulties, the ATO may be able to:

• give your client extra time to lodge or pay their tax; and
• set up a payment plan tailored to your client’s individual situation.

If your client is experiencing serious hardship, contact the ATO as early as possible to discuss what options are available to help your client

You can add and remove clients from your client list using either:

• Online Services for Agents
• Practitioner Lodgment Service.

For more information and steps on how to manage your client list, please visit the following pages on the ATO website: 

• Review your client list
• Client lists
• Removing a client in online services for agents.

If a tax practitioner has not correctly removed a client i.e., they have not removed all tax practitioner contact information such as address or phone number, or if another tax practitioner adds the client without updating the client contact information, you may continue to receive correspondence or phone calls from the ATO. This does not mean the client is still on your list. If this has happened, you will need to contact the client to request they or their new tax practitioner update their details using ATO Online Services for Agents. This is because you will not be authorised to update the client details with the ATO. The ATO is investigating options for a tax practitioner who is no longer authorised to request their details be removed from the client record with the ATO.

myGov is a gateway to access government services in one place. When an individual has created their myGov account, they can link to participating government services and receive secure messages in their myGov inbox from linked services. The ATO is a participating service of myGov and our service is referred to as ATO online services for individuals. The ATO app is a mobile application that assists taxpayers to access and manage their tax and super on the go. The ATO app has a range of features and tools that can be used in an authenticated environment, for example you can sign in to see a personalised experience related to tax and super accounts or unauthenticated use tools and features such as myDeductions without signing in. When a taxpayer logs into the ATO app, they are redirected to myGov to complete the sign in process, and then return to the ATO app to access their tax and super information. More information is available when providing information to clients about the ATO app and features on the ATO website.