Accountant punished for alleged lack of supervision wins back registration

In his 17 June 2025 decision on the TPB’s subsequent appeal, Justice Christopher Horan of the Federal Court of Australia upheld the tribunal’s findings that the termination of Bagga and his firm’s registration was “unwarranted” and that Bagga was a fair and reasonable person, despite the conduct of his employee, Amit Kumar.

Kumar, who had recently arrived in Australia around late 2022, was given access to Bagga and his wife’s GovID as his access had not yet been processed. 

In its grounds of appeal, TPB said that the tribunal erred in determining that the termination of registration was unwarranted and that Bagga was a fit and proper person.

“The Tribunal’s finding that Mr Bagga was a fit and proper person was not legally unreasonable or affected by illogicality or irrationality,” Justice Horan said.

Scrutiny of the firm arose when Kumar, using the borrowed GovIDs, lodged fraudulent activity statements on behalf of two companies that were identified as Auz Taxation’s clients, the tribunal heard. 

“In November 2022, Kumar used those login credentials to register a taxpayer as a client of Auz Taxation, without the taxpayer’s authorisation and without Mr Bagga’s knowledge or authority. The taxpayer subsequently made a complaint to the ATO,” Horan found.

The board alleged that Bagga did not act with honesty or integrity by providing Kumar with unsupervised access to his ATO portal and, by extension, client information.

Kumar was issued a warning for this conduct; however, it was not until the TPB wrote to the sole trader in response to the client complaint in March 2023 that the company dismissed him two days later.

A few months later, the board investigated the company for its conduct, “identifying potential failures to comply with the Code and to meet tax practitioner registration requirements,” Horan found in his decision.

The board decided to terminate the registration of the company and Bagga early the following year, preventing him from reregistering for one year.

The ART set this order aside in late 2025, determining that a written caution to undertake specified actions would be a more appropriate sanction, given the impacts that the deregistration would have on the firm’s more than 5,000 clients.

The tribunal gave orders that the respondents advise their clients of the ART decision; provide training to its accountants about the use of GovID; gradually appoint more registered agents to the company until there is at least one per branch and instruct them to supervise and check all documents before they are lodged on behalf of the client, and provide training to its practitioners in line with the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 and Code of Professional Conduct.

Being the only registered tax agent in the company, Bagga admitted that he rarely attended the company’s Queensland office, which also did not house any registered tax agent. 

The tribunal found that Bagga was unable to provide the company’s employees with the necessary supervision, given the size of the practice, which spanned multiple states, and lodged more than 22,000 returns annually.

“While I am satisfied that past conduct demonstrated a lack of integrity, what has occurred since the events involving Mr Kumar, the rectification of non-compliances with personal tax obligations together with a history of dealing with client tax affairs (which appears unblemished) provides me with some confidence that the events of the past will not be repeated.”

In consideration of the TPB’s appeal, Justice Horan ruled that none of the grounds of appeal was made out. 

The board was ordered to pay costs. 

The case citation: Tax Practitioners Board v Auz Tax Pty Ltd [2026] FCA 751.