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Why agent nominations are helping to protect you and your clients

Last updated 26 February 2023

We've updated our client-to-agent linking in online services web content to share more information with you about why agent nominations are essential to helping protect you and your clients against fraud and identity-related theft.

The security and fraud environments are shifting and we’re seeing increasing attempts to commit identity theft and fraud. This can impact both you and your clients. We’ve worked with agents where they or their clients, or both, have been the victim of identity crime. In these instances, there was a significant and disruptive impact on the agent, which took extensive time to resolve. We've listed some of the actions you may have to take if criminals target you or your clients.

We'll be progressively including more taxpayer groups into the new agent nomination process. In December 2022, we included most large businesses and some private groups. We've now added all government entities (federal, state/territory and local). Most government entities don't currently use an agent, so we don't expect this addition to affect many agents.

We're continuing to consult with agents, industry representatives and businesses. This is so we can consider the needs of you and your clients as we put this process in place. For example, we've now added the client-to-agent linking process to our accepted client verification methods. For those clients now required to complete the agent nomination process, when they do it through our online services it will be an approved client verification method. You won't need to do a separate Proof of Identity process.

We recognise this change to the client-to-agent linking process may require more time and effort for you and some of your clients, mainly those who are not yet set up to use our online services. For those who are already set up, there are only 3 steps to complete the agent nomination process. For those who need to get set up to use our online services or need help, support is available.

It’s important that we work together to keep strengthening the security of our online services. The community expects us to keep our systems safe and to protect their personal information. We take this responsibility very seriously.

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