In April 2016, the Tax Practitioners Board commenced its unregistered service provider project to promote the importance of complying with the registration requirements under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (TASA).
With support from BAS agent associations, almost 3,000 BAS service advertisements were identified as needing further analysis. Over 400 of the advertisements appeared to be advertising BAS services provided by an entity not registered with the TPB.
Further scrutiny of these advertisements resulted in 246 being removed or amended to comply with the TASA. According to the TPB a number of previously non-compliant entities have now become registered with the TPB.
Another aim of the project was to create a level playing field for all registered practitioners who do comply, with the removal of the non-compliant advertisement achieving this.
The TPB can now take action against entities that continue to undertake non-compliant activity, from educating unregistered providers to modify their behaviour through to taking more serious high-risk matters to the Federal Court.
