Every 6 months we conduct a bi-annual survey across a sample of both tax practitioners and consumers. The survey, which first commenced in September 2019, helps us to understand:

• consumers’ trust in registered tax practitioners

• usage and effectiveness of our public register

• awareness and effectiveness of Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) as a regulator.

The survey has now taken place 6 times and the latest survey conducted in October 2022 reveals several interesting trends. Below are some key findings from this survey:

• Consumer confidence in the tax practitioner profession remains very high.

• Consumers have a high trust level in their tax practitioner (89%) and the majority rated their experience as excellent (66%) with business owners giving this the highest rank (of 75%). These figures have remained consistent throughout all 6 surveys. The majority of consumers (58%) advise that they have used the same tax practitioner for more than 5 years.

• Most consumers (68.4%) who were aware of the TPB were also aware of the public register of tax practitioners. This is the highest level of awareness across all six surveys.

• A high percentage of tax practitioners (84.7%) believe that the TPB is effective at ensuring that tax practitioners are registered.

In the previous survey we introduced a new question to understand how effective we are in our efforts to ‘reduce the burden of maintaining your registration’ (red-tape). 80.1% of tax practitioners who responded believe we are continuing to make progress in this area.

Nearly 50% of tax practitioners access our advice and guidance at least once a month and find it useful.

Respondents continued to recognise that regulation of the sector protected both tax practitioners and consumers.

The next survey (wave 7) will be conducted in April 2023 this year. We thank tax practitioners who participated in this, or any previous survey, and also encourage anyone receiving the survey in the future to complete it.