The Federal Court has granted the Tax Practitioners Board’s application for imposition of pecuniary penalties and related declaratory and injunctive relief in relation to the respondent’s contraventions of s 50-5(1) of the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 by providing income tax return services to 14 clients without being a registered agent. As a result of supplying these services to the clients, 2 of them had their taxable incomes increased after audit by the Tax Office and one had an administrative penalty imposed of over $7,000.
The Board and the respondent came to an agreement whereby she admitted to contraventions of the Act and agreed to the penalties and declarations sought by the Board which included an order restraining her from providing such services unless she became a registered tax agent and that she be required to inform any potential client of her current contraventions, together with the payment of a pecuniary penalty of $40,000 over 6 years.
In exercising its powers to determine whether the orders and penalties imposed were appropriate, the Court found that they were so for a number of reasons, including that the respondent was aware that she was not a registered tax agent, noting that the object of the Act is to ensure that tax agent services are provided to the public in accordance with appropriate standards of professional and ethical conduct, and that the penalty imposed was appropriate in acting as a specific and general deterrence.
(Tax Practitioners Board v Munro [2012] FCA 1338, Federal Court, Collier J, 28 November 2012.)
[LTN 232, 29/11]