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Engaging a tax professional

You can use a tax professional to help keep your NFP obligations on track.

Published 5 August 2025

A tax professional can help you prepare and lodge a range of obligations. Tax professionals include tax and BAS agents who must be registered with the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB). You can check whether a person is registered on the TPB websiteExternal Link.

Note that BAS agents can only provide some of the services tax agents are registered to provide. For example, while BAS agents can support you to meet your obligations, they can’t legally charge a fee to lodge a not-for-profit (NFP) organisation self-review return or income tax return on your behalf. You can find more information about the difference between tax agents and BAS agents at Finding and using a tax practitionerExternal Link.

We have enhanced our protections against identity-related fraud and theft, so if you choose to engage a new tax agent to lodge your NFP self-review return, you must nominate them as your NFP's tax agent.

How to nominate your agent

To nominate your tax agent:

Set up your digital ID, such as myID

  1. Link your digital ID to your NFP's ABN.
  2. Log into Online services for businessExternal Link.
  3. Nominate your authorised agent in Online services for business.
  4. Let your agent know you have nominated them.

Before you can complete steps 1 and 2, you must make sure you are the principal authorityExternal Link for your NFP. This is also known as the associate for your NFP.

For more detail about these steps visit How to nominate your registered agent, which includes a downloadable PDF guide with screenshots. You can also see Agent nomination for more information.

Stay up to date

  • You can read more articles in the Not-for-profit newsroom and, if you haven't already, subscribeExternal Link to our free monthly newsletter Not-for-profit news to be alerted when we publish new articles.
  • For updates throughout the month, Assistant Commissioner Jennifer Moltisanti regularly shares blog posts and updates on her LinkedInExternal Link profile. And you can check out our online platform ATO CommunityExternal Link to find answers to your tax and super questions.

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