Compliance program 2009-10

Tax practitioners

Tax practitioners play a vital role in the Australian tax system. About 26,000 registered tax agents interact with us for advice. They lodge around 73% of income tax returns for individuals and more than 95% of business tax returns. Many tax agents also provide financial advice and/or act as approved auditors of SMSFs.

A range of other intermediaries operate alongside tax agents, working with taxpayers across a variety of tax matters. The tax industry therefore includes lawyers providing tax advice to people or acting on their behalf, and bookkeepers providing bookkeeping services and, if registered as business activity statement (BAS) agents, preparing activity statements for businesses and other organisations. Software developers are also important intermediaries because many tax professionals rely on their products.

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