NTAA, CPA Australia flag ‘significant gaps’ in OSfA functionalities

The NTAA said that OSfA fell short of what was required to support efficient day-to-day engagement between tax agents and the Tax Office.

“NTAA members have consistently told us over many years that they would prefer to self-serve through OSfA. Their recent feedback is consistent with these long-held views,” the submission read.

“However, members reported that the platform does not yet provide all the tools, reliability, or communication channels necessary to make OSfA a practical and default option for many routine tasks.”

Many routine tasks could not be completed through OSfA, the NTAA pointed out, including changing client correspondence preferences between postal and digital, transferring credits between client accounts and manually marking payment plans as complete once the balance had been paid in full.

In some cases, this had led to incorrect records concerning tax debts, the association said.

“Members reported that clients who have paid out their debt early cannot have the plan marked as complete, and, in at least one instance, a client was incorrectly recorded as having defaulted on a plan they had in fact paid out,” the submission read.

To remedy these issues, the NTAA called on the ATO to expand self-service functionality by allowing tax agents to complete more tasks online.

“Suggested priority areas include changing correspondence preferences, transferring credits between accounts, marking payment plans as complete, requesting refunds, and completing registration-related updates,” its submission read.

CPA Australia suggested the Tax Office make core online transactions, such as payment plans, refunds, document IDs and activity statement revisions, reliable and complete.

Both CPA Australia and the NTAA also raised concerns with Practice Mail’s lack of transparency and two-way communication.

“Response times are slow and inconsistent, with no visibility of where a request sits in the queue or when an outcome can be expected,” the NTAA said.

“Members reported waiting times well beyond 28 days for responses to routine matters, with follow-up calls yielding little more than confirmation that the matter has been escalated.”

CPA Australia said practice mail was missing basic service signals, with no reliable acknowledgement that requests had been received, poor status visibility, and slow, inconsistent turnarounds.

When response times exceeded the listed time targets, CPA warned that this posed client risk and prompted agents to follow up with the ATO by phone. To fix this, the NTAA suggested that the ATO should introduce real-time status tracking for practice mail requests.

“This was the single most frequently raised improvement across member feedback. Agents would greatly benefit from improved visibility of the status of their requests, their progression and an indication of expected timeframes for resolution,” the association's submission read.

“This would also reduce the volume and frequency of follow-up phone calls to the ATO.”

Consultation for the Tax Ombudsman’s review into OSfA closed on 10 April. The review report is expected to be delivered by August 2026.