The Australian Tax Practitioner’s Board (TPB), the governing body that issues Tax Agent Licenses, requires primarily two major elements to be satisfied before a Tax Agent License is issued:
- Certain academic qualifications, and,
- A specified period of work experience working under the supervision of a Registered Tax Agent.
A common misconception in regard to academic qualifications is that the TPB requires you to complete certain degrees or diplomas, it may not set this requirement for you. The TPB certainly requires that you successfully complete specific subjects from an authorised educational institution not necessarily leading up to the completion of a full diploma or degree. Certain of these subjects need to be current (ie completed less than 5 years prior to the submission of your application to become a Tax Agent) for example a module covering the rules and regulations governing your activities as a Tax Agent; other subjects can be less current such as Australian Business Law and Australian Tax Law. Because every case is different the best approach here is to call the TPB and tell them what qualifications and experience you already have and ask them to tell you the subjects that you will need (if any) in addition to your existing qualifications. Another approach to this question is to call a reputable and TPB authorised training college and ask them the same question.
Often the more perplexing issues is how to get the “relevant experience” required by the TPB to support your license application. Many bookkeepers in public practice face the dilemma of potentially abandoning their practice and go to work for a registered tax agent. This is of course problematic both because it is financially not viable and secondly many registered tax agents won’t sign off on the required relevant experience form simply because they don’t want you competing with them in providing tax services to their clients. This problem often brings to an end any thought of acquiring a Tax Agent License.
The answer to the relevant experience issue is the Program offered by Tax Agent Pathway™. They will supervise your tax work in situ allowing you to remain in your practice preparing tax returns and BAS returns for your existing clients. You effectively work for them as a consultant with them supervising the tax work your do for your clients under their highly experienced guidance.
Call them today on 03 8456 7070 or email Tax Agent Pathway™ at sales@taxagentpathway.com.au.
Why become a tax agent in Australia if you’re a bookkeeper in public practice?
The market in Australia for the provision of bookkeeping, accounting, administration and tax services to small businesses has changed in recent years. Most small business now want their bookkeeper/accountant/tax agent to be the same person or firm. This fact presents both an opportunity and an exposure to those providing bookkeeping services to that market place.
The opportunity for public practicing bookkeepers that results from this trend is firstly the potential expansion of their revenue base if they offered a broader range of services to existing clients. Because you have a close working relationship with your clients it is highly likely that they would bring their tax work to you if you were in a position to provide that service. You probably already get asks several times a week if you would please do their tax (and BAS) returns as well as the bookkeeping.
The reason for your client’s keenness for you to do both the bookkeeping and the tax returns is that your clients are sick of standing in the middle between their bookkeeper and their tax agent fielding questions from both with neither the knowledge or interest to provide the answers. The inherent inefficiency of such an arrangement is obvious to them as business people and the high nuisance value of being told different things by different service providers makes them keen to use a provider who is able to handle both the bookkeeping and the tax work.
This issue also provides an exposure to your bookkeeping practice. If they are asking you, their bookkeeper, whether you can do their tax work then they are most likely asking their tax agent whether they can do their bookkeeping as well. So, offering a full range of services can both protect your existing client base as well as attract new clients to your practice.
Tax Agent Pathway™ offers you the opportunity to immediately start providing tax services to your clients by supervising your preparation of their tax and BAS returns. You effectively become a consultant and work under their guidance but you are the only person with direct contact with your client base.
Perhaps more importantly the work that you do under that supervision counts towards you obtaining the relevant experience required by the TPB for you to obtain your own Tax Agent License.
Call Tax Agent Pathway™ today on 03 8456 7070 or email Tax Agent Pathway™ at sales@taxagentpathway.com.au.
Bookkeepers Make Great Tax Agents
Let’s be clear, bookkeepers are the real accountants. I’ve been in public practice now for over twenty years and I know that there are “accountants” and Tax Agents out there who can’t drive a ledger (with all due respect to the education some of them put themselves through). But many wouldn’t know a debit from a credit, they only know which box on the tax return to fill out.
The fact remains though, if you can’t get the ledger right or if you don’t know the difference between a reconciled, well ordered ledger from one that is seriously messed up, then you’re going to get the tax or BAS return wrong. It’s inevitable.
That is why experienced bookkeepers make great Tax Agents.
In fact, I don’t like the term “bookkeeper”. “Accountant” is an unprotected term in Australian law but I don’t believe you should be able to call yourself an “Accountant” unless you can keep well ordered, fully reconciled, properly supported books of account.
Heresy perhaps to some, but in my years in public practice I ended up only hiring experienced bookkeepers and training them to be tax accountants rather than climb the often-insurmountable mountain of training university accounting graduates to drive a ledger.
The problem bookkeepers in public practice have in obtaining their Tax Agent License is obtaining the necessary relevant experience that is required by the Tax Practitioners Board, that is working under the supervision of a registered tax agent. Tax Agent Pathway™ solves that problem by supervising tax work done for your own clients.
Go to their website and contact them today www.taxagentpathway.com.au
