accounting

Ideal for tax accountant assistants, assistant accountants, financial accounting assistants or anyone looking to enhance their accounting career, our Certificate of Australian Taxation will provide you with the knowledge and skills to maintain taxation accounting records and process lodgements and returns for businesses and individuals.

In this Australian taxation course, you will learn how to prepare non-complex income tax returns for individuals in accordance with statutory requirements. You will also gain insights on calculating taxable income, how to gather and verify data, review compliance, and understand record management and business PAYG and BAS for business tax returns and lodgements.

Learning Outcomes

Outcomes achieved by undertaking an Australian taxation course include:

• Learning about taxation in Australia
• Studying taxation at local, state, territory and federal levels
• Exploring taxation revenue and collecting tax
• Gaining an understanding of the types of tax
• Examining the Australian taxation office (ATO)
• Understanding what taxation revenue is used for
• Attaining knowledge of personal tax
• Gaining insights into key tax terminology
• Learning about tax declaration forms and tax file numbers (TFN)
• Exploring personal tax rates and calculating tax
• Gaining an understanding of tax information and business tax
• Studying sole traders, partnerships, companies and trusts
• Examining business taxes and business activity statement (BAS)
• Understanding tax liability, taxation offsets, super contributions and PAYG instalments
• Attaining knowledge of paying state taxes and lodging a tax return
• Gaining insights into tax concessions
• Learning about tax overpayment
• Exploring non-payment of tax
• Gaining an understanding of the taxation account system and the accrual system
• Studying GST treatment
• Examining debit and credit
• Understanding how to maintain adequate records, tax invoices and recipient created tax invoice (RCTI)
• Attaining knowledge of claiming a GST credit
• Gaining insights into reconciliations, cash transactions, non-cash transactions and Australian standards in terms of record management
• Learning about taxation requirements, business tax returns and the taxation lodgement process
• Exploring property register
• Gaining an understanding of activity requirements and lodgement schedule requirements
• Studying transactions not reported, company tax returns, superannuation levies and PAYG with holding annual reports and PAYG tax withheld

And more!

Registering as an Individual Tax Agent

As you will discover in our Australian taxation course, tax agents must be registered with the Tax Practitioner’s Board in order to provide tax practitioner services in Australia. If your registration is approved, you will be registered for at least three years.

 

Requirements for Registration

• You must be at least 18 years of age to be eligible to apply.
• You must be a fit and proper person.
• You must satisfy the qualification and experience requirements via the supply of electronic copies of academic transcripts, course outlines and certificates as required to show you have completed the required qualifications. You must also supply statements from an employer or supervising tax agent to demonstrate you have the required amount of relevant experience.
• You maintain, or will be able to maintain, professional indemnity insurance that meets the Board’s
• You must complete an online application and provide all supporting documents. These include Proof of Identity checks for tax practitioners such as your driver’s license, Medicare card or passport.
• You may also be asked to supply details of voting memberships for any recognised tax agent association, if applicable.

Application Fee

The current application fee is $704 and is not subject to GST. You must pay the application fee in full when you apply for registration. Payment details, including your reference number are provided in the online application form. The application fee is subject to a consumer price index adjustment on the 1st July each year.

 

After Lodging Your Application

The Tax Practitioner’s Board will advise you after the decision is made to either grant or reject your application for registration. They aim to process complete applications within 30 days of receiving them.

If your application is granted:

• Details of your registration will appear on the TPB register.
• You must advise us of how you meet our professional indemnity insurance requirements within 14 days of being notified that you are registered.
• They will notify the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) that you are now registered with them. You can then contact the ATO to arrange access to their online services.

If your application is rejected:

• They will advise you of the reasons for their decision and of your appeal rights.
• They will notify the ATO of their decision to reject your application.

 

Code of Professional Conduct for Tax Agents

The Code of Professional Conduct (Code) regulates your personal and professional conduct as a registered tax agent after completing your Australian taxation course. The code sets out principles under five categories:

1. Honesty and integrity

• You must act honestly and with integrity.
• You must comply with the taxation laws in the conduct of your personal affairs.
• If you receive money or other property from or on behalf of a client, and hold the money or other property on trust, you must account to your client for the money or other property.

2. Independence

• You must act lawfully in the best interests of your client.
• You must have in place adequate arrangements for the management of conflicts of interest that may arise in relation to the activities that you undertake in the capacity of a registered tax agent.

 

3. Confidentiality

• Unless you have a legal duty to do so, you must not disclose any information relating to a client’s affairs to a third party without your client’s permission.

 

4. Competence

• You must ensure that a tax agent service that you provide, or that is provided on your behalf, is provided competently.
• You must maintain knowledge and skills relevant to the tax agent services that you provide.
• You must take reasonable care in ascertaining a client’s state of affairs, to the extent that ascertaining the state of those affairs is relevant to a statement you are making or a thing you are doing on behalf of a client.
• You must take reasonable care to ensure that taxation laws are applied correctly to the circumstances in relation to which you are providing advice to a client.

 

5. Other Responsibilities

• You must not knowingly obstruct the proper administration of the taxation laws.
• You must advise your client of the client’s rights and obligations under the taxation laws that are materially related to the tax agent services you provide.
• You must maintain the professional indemnity insurance that the Board requires you to maintain.
• You must respond to requests and directions from the Board in a timely, responsible and reasonable manner.

 

For a detailed explanation of each of these categories refer to TPB(EP) 01/2010: Code of Professional Conduct.

Recommendations for Complying with the Code

To assist you to comply with certain aspects of the Code, the Tax Practitioner’s Board have guidance material available on matters such as:

• Passing on refunds
• Letters of engagement
• Holding money or other property on trust
• Reasonable care
• Managing conflicts of interest
• Confidentiality of client information.

Failure to Comply with the Code

If you fail to comply with your obligations under the Code and the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 (TASA),

the Tax Practitioners Board may impose sanctions. This involves making preliminary enquiries and, where appropriate,initiating a formal investigation. If they find that a tax practitioner has failed to comply with the TASA, they may impose one or more administrative sanctions or seek a Court imposed civil penalty.

The severity of a sanction depends on the nature and extent of the breach and the individual circumstances of each case. Administrative sanctions for breach of the Code can include:

• A written caution
• An order requiring the tax practitioner to:
• respond to requests and directions from the Board
• complete a course of education or training they specify
• only provide certain services
• provide services only under supervision
• Suspension of registration for a certain period
• Termination of registration.

Gain the confidence to process business tax requirements and prepare non-complex income tax returns with an Australian taxation course such as our Certificate of Australian Taxation.