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TPB set to recognise new qualifications for BAS agents

Regulation

Bookkeepers looking to further their education have been given a leg up by the Tax Practitioners Board, who have clarified their recognition of new education qualifications.

By Jotham Lian 9 minute read

As announced earlier this year, the Department of Education and Training released a new Diploma of Payroll Services after an extensive review found that existing payroll training was not sufficient for industry requirements.

A revised Certificate IV in Accounting and Bookkeeping to supersede existing Certificate IV qualifications has also been released as part of the overhaul.

While registered training organisations (RTOs) will be given 12 months to develop new resources in line with the new requirements, industry feedback to the Diploma of Payroll Services has been lukewarm, due in part to the TPB’s lack of recognition of the new qualification under its BAS tertiary qualifying list.

Current standards include at least a Certificate IV financial services in bookkeeping or accounting and a board approved course in GST/BAS taxation principles.

However, TPB chair Ian Taylor has sought to clarify the board’s recognition of the new diploma, hinting that there was scope for the new qualification to also meet the board approved GST/BAS course requirements.

“The TPB has indicated that we may in the future accept that the newly approved Diploma in Payroll could be considered at least the equivalent of a Cert IV in Bookkeeping and Accounting,” said Mr Taylor.

“A person having completed that course would then be eligible to register as a BAS agent provided that they had also completed the board approved course in GST/BAS. They would only ever be registered as a restricted BAS agent – i.e. payroll services only.

“What we have said is that if a person completed the eight compulsory units of the Diploma of Payroll and included the GST/BAS elective unit amongst their three elective units they would not then need to do the additional board approved GST/BAS course in order to meet the education requirements.

“They would also obviously need to satisfy the 1,400/1,000 hour experience requirement and we would accept specific payroll experience in this context.”

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Jotham Lian

Jotham Lian

AUTHOR

Jotham Lian is the editor of Accountants Daily, the leading source of breaking news, analysis and insight for Australian accounting professionals.

Before joining the team in 2017, Jotham wrote for a range of national mastheads including the Sydney Morning Herald, and Channel NewsAsia.

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