Notify us of your authority to act
Your clients must appoint you as their registered agent before they can be covered by your lodgment program. Your authority to act on behalf of a new client for lodgment purposes only takes effect from when we receive it.
To ensure new clients are covered by your lodgment program for 2026–27, you must notify us of your authority to act by:
- 31 October 2026 for income tax
- 21 May 2027 for fringe benefits tax.
You can't notify us on the next business day.
If you accept a new client for income tax purposes after 31 October 2026, check the lodgment due date for the client on your client list. If the new client was previously a self-preparer, they will not be covered by your lodgment program and may need to lodge by an earlier due date.
How to notify us
You can notify us of your authority to act on behalf of a client by adding them to your client list using either:
Activity statement role
Our current systems don't allow more than one agent to be appointed to the activity statement role for a client. Keep this in mind if your client has both a tax agent and a BAS agent to prepare their documents.
You can see if an agent already exists for a role in Online services for agents. In these cases, you should make sure your client has provided you the authority to act for them for that obligation.
Lodge overdue prior year returns
Lodge your clients' overdue prior year tax returns by 31 October 2026 to ensure their 2026 tax return receives your lodgment program due date.
Find out how taxpayers with overdue tax returns can affect due dates.
Lodge electronically
To receive the lodgment program due dates for your client's:
- tax and annual returns, you must lodge your clients' tax and annual returns electronically
- activity statements, you must lodge your clients' activity statements electronically and the activity statement must meet the eligibility criteria.
Note: lodgment program due dates are applied to eligible activity statements that generate after you've lodged your client's previous activity statement electronically.