It has been a long time coming, but last week we saw a Bill introduced into the House of Representatives that will subject financial advisers who provide tax advice to the Tax Agent Services regime.

As members will be aware, The Tax Institute has worked hard to ensure that this strong regulatory framework enforced by the Tax Practitioners Board is applied to financial advisers who operate in tax.  Consumer protection is paramount, and this legislation will ultimately apply that protection to clients of financial advisers.

As the legislation is set to start on 1 July 2013, the Government is certainly cutting it fine to pass it into law. However, they are committed to doing so prior to Parliament rising in late June.

One of our key concerns - the education and experience requirements that will be required of financial advisers - still remains to be finalised via regulations. We will continue to work closely with the government and the TPB to ensure these standards are satisfactory.

If you have any thoughts on the above (or on any other topic) and would like to share them with your Tax Policy and Advocacy team, please email us at Tax Policy.

Robert Jeremenko

Robert Jeremenko CTA is Senior Tax Counsel of The Tax Institute.

The Tax Institute is Australia’s leading professional association in tax. Its 13,000 members include tax agents, accountants and lawyers as well as tax practitioners in corporations, government and academia.