Did you know that our Cert IV in Accounting and Bookkeeping can help you satisfy your primary qualification requirement in your BAS or tax agent registration application?

All BAS and tax agents in Australia must be registered with the Australian Government’s Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) to provide BAS or tax agent services for a fee or other reward. This provides consumers with the assurance that they are dealing with responsible, qualified and skilled personnel who adhere to a strict code of conduct.

An individual, a partnership, or a company can apply for registration with the TPB.

Requirements for registration

An individual, each individual partner, or each director of a company applying for registration must:

• Be at least 18 years old;
• Be a fit and proper person;
• Have the required qualification(s) and experience;
• Maintain or will be able to maintain Professional Indemnity insurance according to the prescribed standards; and
• Submit an online form and provide all the required supporting documents.

Additional requirements for registration

A partnership or a company applying for registration must also:

• Have a sufficient number of registered individual tax agents to provide tax agent services and supervision on behalf of the entity;
• Not be under external administration; and
• Not have been convicted of a serious offence involving fraud or dishonesty during the previous 5-years.

Additionally, if there is a company partner in a partnership:

• Each director of the company partner must be at least 18 years old;
• Each director of the company partner must be a fit and proper person;
• The company partner must not be under external administration; and
• The company partner must not have been convicted of a serious taxation offence or an offence involving fraud or dishonesty during the previous 5-years.

Who is considered a fit and proper person?

To be eligible for registration, an applicant must satisfy TPB’s fit and proper person requirement. The fit and proper person applies to all individual applicants, each partner in a partnership, and each director in a company.

In deciding whether an individual is a fit and proper person, the following is considered:

• Whether the individual is of good fame, integrity and character;
• Whether any of the following events have occurred during the previous 5-years:
  • the individual has been convicted of a serious taxation offence;
  • the individual has been convicted of an offence involving fraud or dishonesty;
  • the individual has been penalised for being a promoter of a tax exploitation scheme;
  • the individual has been penalised for implementing a scheme that has been promoted on the basis of conformity with a product ruling in a way that is materially different from that described in the product ruling;
  • the individual has had the status of an undischarged bankrupt; and
  • the individual has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment, or served a term of imprisonment in whole or in part.

Qualifications and experience

To become a registered BAS or tax agent, individual applicants must satisfy certain qualifications and experience requirements as set out in the Tax Agent Services Regulations 2009. Check out this article

You can find out more about TPB registration here:

• Tax agent registration
• BAS agent registration

If you are interested to find out more about our FNS40615 Certificate IV in Accounting and Bookkeeping, speak to one of our team members or browse through our website for more information!

Always remember that you have to put in the effort to be able to reap its rewards! Don’t be fearful of hard work!