Need experience to become a Registered Tax Agent

Hi All,

I'm 35 years old, am a Chartered Accountant and work as a Senior Finance Analyst for a large global organisation. I have been an accountant in a variety of organisations, starting out at KPMG when I was a graduate in 2007.

I am looking to increase my experience and earn some additional income with a long term view to starting up a small practice of my own. In the short term, I am looking to further extend my property portfolio.

As I need 12 months full time experience to become a registered tax agent in my own right, I would love to perhaps partner with someone who is an RTA and could shadow me on a part time basis (weekends/after hours) so as I can still do my day job.

I could perhaps find some of my own clients and use your license to submit tax returns (only after they have been reviewed) and even do bookkeeping for additional income and we could split the fee for an agreed percentage.

If anyone knows of anyone that could help me out or perhaps point me in the right direction with some advice, I would be very appreciative.

Thanks in advance

 

Hi Andy,

did you have any luck setting something up to get your experience?

 

Andys idea is not likely to be suitable experience. You must possess the experience requirements of the tpb and also across all forms of tax issues and for a required period of time. Without working in.practice...forget it. And then mentor sign off

Quals are one thing but experience is far harder. You cannot have clients then submit through others. Quite the opposite. Bookkeeping is not tax and practitioner work

Qualifications and experience for tax agents | TPB
...

 

Hi @andyboiii Why do you want to be a tax agent? Financial Analyst work is very different to tax compliance.. (I’ve done both).

I am also a Chartered accountant with my own accounting, bookkeeping and consulting business. I have plenty of clients and work without needing to get my tax agent licence - I do BAs’s and and registered with the TPB for that. I prefer working with regular clients weekly/fortnightly then seeing them once a year to lodge their tax - I used to work at in Business Services and found it a bit boring after a few years of doing the same files year in year out.

Perhaps see if you qualify for your BAS licence and start with a few bookkeeping clients to see if you like it. Running your own business/practice is very different to being employed as an accountant. There is a lot of compliance costs and training to maintain as well. Just food for thought.

Also, if you are a CA you need to get your public practice certificate before you can charge the public for your services (even for bookkeeping). This invoices paying $1200 for the CPP course, getting PI insurance and completing the online modules and a 2 day workshop. There is a $12,500 annual fee threshold, if you make less than that, you still need to register with the CA but I think you get an exemption from paying some of the fees. I had to go through all this recently, plus additional study to pass the GST challenge exam and do the TASA course to get my BAS agent licence... it’s taken about 6 months to get it all organised and fit in the study and exams!

 

Thats an interesting point. Do you find that not being registered as a tax agent effects business with current clients e.g. providing tax advice/returns?

 

Only registered tax agents can lodge tax returns and only registered tax agents or lawyers can give tax advice. Accounting is a different field to tax, and many tax agents are accountants - but not all.

 

Not at all, it’s just a different service/niche, all of my clients love that I understand tax and can warn them of any tax issues I come across and then we liaise regularly with their tax agents. I do a lot of cashflow management, payroll, budgets, financial reporting, management reporting, consulting, process improvement, setting up processes, training etc I wouldn’t have time to do tax returns even if I wanted to... I enjoy building a relationship with my clients while we work on their businesses on a regular basis.

A lot of people have a narrow view of what accountants do, tax returns are only a very small part of what you can do. There is a high demand for Chartered Accountants that can solve problems and advise clients on their business issues.

Today for example, I was helping a client implement a new timesheeting and billing system and figuring out how it would integrate with their accounting system.

Everyday is different, which I like!

 

That great to know thank you for explaining it, I was definitely one that had a narrow mind as I had not used an accountant other than tax returns. It does sound what you're doing would be more interesting and makes a lot of sense.

 

No worries, happy to explain, anything that helps remove the typical stigma of accountants being boring non social tax return crunchers! Haha

 

Haha you did well!!

 

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