The Federal Court has dismissed an applicant’s appeal from the decision in AAT Case [2014] AATA 112, Re Ayles and Tax Practitioners Board in which the AAT refused his application for registration as a tax agent on the basis that the applicant did not satisfy the necessary tertiary qualification experience which, according to the AAT, required the degree to be viewed “as a whole” in determining whether it was “relevant to the tax agent services to which the application relates”. This was despite the fact the applicant had only applied for a limited registration to prepare individual returns and that he had completed a subject in accounting and income tax law within his degree (with distinction).
However, in dismissing the appeal, the Federal Court agreed with the AAT’s interpretation that in terms of the specific tertiary requirements, it was not satisfied that the applicant’s degree, when “viewed as a whole”, was relevant to the tax agent services to which his application related. In this regard, the Court noted that the applicant’s Bachelor of Arts (Humanities) degree was dominated by religious and humanitarian subjects.
In short, the Court concluded that an assessment of whether a degree is relevant to tax agent services can only be undertaken by examining the subjects in the degree, and deciding whether the number and nature of those subjects is relevant to taxation services sought to be provided by the applicant, and that in this regard, the language of the provisions suggests that the degree is to be viewed “as a whole”.
(Ayles v Tax Practitioners Board [2014] FCA 675, Federal Court, Rangiah J, 26 June 2014.)
[LTN 123, 30/6/14]