BAS agent’s registration application rejected over insufficient experience

After being informed by a 22 January 2025 letter of the TPB’s decision to quash his registration application, the BAS agent Albadeen filed an appeal against this decision with the Administrative Review Tribunal on 2 February 2025, which failed after general member Smith ruled that his broad assertions did not demonstrate “relevant experience”.

Despite Albadeen submitting a statement of relevant experience that stated that he prepared and lodged BAS and IAS over a relevant period, it failed to identify the tasks he was involved in and whether he was required to “exercise professional judgement or any dealings with the Tax Office”, nor did it demonstrate that he provided advice – finding it “did not establish substantial involvement in the provision of a tax agent service”, the general member said.

While the TPB accepted that Albadeen completed 2,254 hours of “relevant experience” and that he completed at least 826 hours of BAS services in the past five years, the board submitted that Albadeen failed to undertake the “substantial involvement” with these services needed to qualify him to apply as a TPB registered agent.

The tribunal ruled that “relevant experience” must involve work that includes ”substantial involvement” in the provision of tax agent services or the practice of a particular area of taxation law relating to such services, including ascertaining liabilities, obligations or entitlements of an entity, advising an entity about these, representing an entity in their dealings with the Commissioner”.

General member Smith accepted that the relevance of the experience depended on this substance. Although the general member provided Albadeen an opportunity to explain the work he performed as a BAS agent, she found that his evidence was “brief and did not descend into any meaningful level of detail,” with specific details “absent”.

“The evidence remained largely at the level of broad assertion that certain work had been performed and advice given,” she noted.

“The focus is on whether the nature and extent of an applicant’s involvement in the provision of the relevant tax service was substantial.”

While the general member said that there is “no dispute” that Albadeen had completed at least 826 hours of work as a BAS agent within the past five years, it said that “relevant experience” referred to the qualitative, not quantitative aspect.

“Albadeen’s evidence does not establish the nature, character and extent of the work undertaken in the provision of those services and therefore the Tribunal is unable to conclude that work of another kind includes substantial involvement in the provision of relevant tax service,” the general member found.

“Apart from a client list, Mr Albadeen has not provided any documents evidencing BAS agent services or a statement from any clients detailing the nature and extent of the BAS services supplied,”

In his oral evidence, Albadeen said that he had provided BAS services for a number of years prior to his registration as a BAS agent in October 2019, initially employed as a finance officer, preparing and lodging BAS and IAS, and before starting his own business to provide BAS services unsupervised and broader tax services under the supervision of a registered agent.

Smith ruled that Albadeen failed to demonstrate that his work as a BAS agent was relevant to the requirements to become a registered TPB agent, had undertaken at least two years of full-time relevant experience (or part-time equivalent) in the last five years – determining that his registration as a tax agent must be rejected as he “did not meet the requirements prescribed by the regulations relating to relevant experience, and therefore cannot be considered eligible for registration as an individual tax agent”.

“The legislative regime draws a distinction between registration as a BAS agent and registration as a tax agent,” the general member noted.

General member Smith said that the fact that the TPB did not seek to cross-examine Albadeen during the hearing “reflects the fact that the evidence provided by Albadeen was expressed at such a level of generality that there was little of substance which required testing”.

“The evidence taken at its highest did not provide a sufficient foundation for the findings the Applicant asked the Tribunal to make,” the general member said.

Thus, Smith concluded that the TPB’s refusal of Albadeen’s registration as a TPB tax agent is “the correct and preferable decision”, rejecting the applicant’s appeal application.

The case citation: Albadeen and Tax Practitioners Board [2026] ARTA 990 (4 June 2026).