As the landscape of tax advisory and accounting continues to evolve, staying informed and proactive is essential. With significant amendments to the Tax Agent Services Act (TASA) coming into effect from 1 January or 1 July 2025 (depending on your business size), Australian accounting professionals must be prepared to adapt.
At its core, the updated TASA regulations are designed to enhance transparency, accountability, and professional standards in tax agent services. A few examples of the obligations which practitioners must adhere to include:
- Maintain complete, accurate, and accessible records of all tax agent services provided, including to former clients, for at least five years.
- Document the nature and outcome of services provided, the advice given or received, and, where relevant, the assumptions and calculation methods used in complex cases.
- Implement quality management systems to support consistent and compliant service delivery.
Put simply, this isn’t just a compliance exercise – it’s about reinforcing trust, professionalism, and integrity in client engagements.
What This Means for Accountants
The implications are clear: practices must elevate their recordkeeping and operational discipline. It’s not enough to jot down notes during a client meeting or rely on scattered email trails. Every interaction—whether it’s a phone call, a piece of advice, or a complex calculation—needs to be properly recorded, categorised, and retrievable.
For firms using legacy software or informal processes, this shift may feel daunting. However, it presents an opportunity to modernise workflows and systems to ensure full compliance and create operational efficiencies.
Implementing a modern document management platform such as FYI, which is already built to support best-practice compliance, documentation and audit trails, helps minimise the risks associated with manual processes and can make it much easier to bring your practice into compliance.
The Risks of Non-Compliance
The consequences of failing to comply with TASA requirements are severe, breaches may result in fines, sanctions, or even loss of registration as a tax agent. There’s also reputational risk with the potential for a breach to erode hard earned trust and credibility.
In a world where regulatory scrutiny is intensifying, and client expectations are rising, proactive compliance is not optional—it’s essential.
Learn more
Practices seeking more information about TASA and how the right technology can vastly simplify their compliance program can jump onto FYI’s webinar Navigating the New TASA Rules: How FYI Simplifies Compliance being held at midday AEST on June 17.
