The Tax Practitioners Board (Board) will continue its assertive compliance posture in 2026, having recently unveiled a long and detailed list of target areas, particularly against accountants who it says lack integrity.

The Board has the power to investigate and sanction accountants who engage in conduct which the Board says is unethical, lacks integrity, or undermines the community’s trust in the tax profession. It can also not renew accountants’ registration. The Board identifies such conduct by using data, sharing information amongst other agencies and bodies such as the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, and the professional bodies more generally, and from receiving complaints.

2026 will see the Board pay very close attention to the following conduct.

• Helping clients avoid paying their tax debts – under this heading, the Board will target accountants who encourage clients to avoid paying their tax debts to the ATO on time, or to structure their affairs by adopting business models designed to avoid tax obligations. This includes structures to avoid paying Goods and Services Tax (GST) to the ATO and entitlements to employees.
• Engaging in illegal phoenix activities – under this heading, the Board will target accountants who advise or assist clients to restructure company affairs without paying fair market value, abuse small business restructure concessions, and install dummy directors.
• Shifting profits to low-tax and no-tax jurisdictions – under this heading, the Board will target accountants who advise and implement schemes that move profits out of the Australian tax net and into low-tax and no-tax jurisdictions (colloquially and often referred to as “tax havens”).  This will include accountants who do not adequately advise clients about the risks of such structures exposing them unreasonably to audit amendments and penalties, or where template structures are implemented without regard to clients’ specific circumstances.
• Hiding income or assets in secrecy havens – under this heading, the Board will target accountants who advise or assist clients to conceal income or assets internationally, obscure beneficial ownership of income or assets, or exploit the secrecy rules of foreign countries. This will include accountants who then keep information about such structures, income and assets away from authorities using privileges or other concessions.
• Misusing Research & Development (R&D) concessions – under this heading, the Board will target accountants who make claims for clients for non-existent R&D activities, or activities and expenses that rely on unrealistic valuations.
• Facilitating shadow economy activities – under this heading, the Board will target accountants who overclaim or fabricate deductions for their clients, fail to disclose clients’ income, or exploit regulatory gaps, such as GST refund claims that initially go unexamined by the ATO.
• Overclaiming work-related expenses – under this heading, the Board will target accountants who have high rates of work-related expense claims (generally “D1” to “D10”) denied by the ATO leading to clients having to repay the ATO underpaid taxes, often with additional penalties and interest. The Board will want to know what checks were completed and whether such lodgments with the ATO were adequately supervised.
• Exploiting vulnerable Australians – under this heading, the Board will target accountants who advise on or promote early access to superannuation schemes where access does not meet a condition of release, or refund loan products that may cause accountants and clients to take on additional risk in respect of their taxation positions often without adequate basis for doing so.
• Failing to meet personal tax obligations – under this heading, the Board will target accountants who do not meet lodgment and payments obligations to the ATO on time for themselves and all of their associated entities, including companies, trusts and superannuation funds. This may also extend to accountants who act as directors or contacts for clients’ entities where the respective client is a foreign client or otherwise located overseas.

The difficulty that we foresee with the abovementioned conduct is that many of the Board’s targets are fairly and squarely in the grey-zone, and often subjective, causing substantial uncertainty and compliance burden. This will invariably be passed on as additional costs to clients. For instance, an arrangement that permits a client to substantially reduce their tax payable may be perceived by regulators as an aggressive scheme, albeit it is later determined by the courts to be lawful. Conduct mentioned as “shifting profits to tax havens” fits in this category. Further, the distinction between “lawful restructuring” and “unlawful phoenixing” may be in the eye of the beholder, particularly where clients rely on paying fair market value for assets. Finally, failures by clients to maintain adequate records for work-related deductions may mean that the ATO is not satisfied during an audit and clients’ claims are denied. Such audit outcomes are then alleged as the overclaiming of deductions that could not be substantiated because of a lack of supervision, control and oversight.

The Board also requires accountants to comply with their mandatory reporting obligations under the self-reporting rules, the other practitioner reporting rules, or the client reporting rules. In each scenario, accountants are required to dob-in themselves, colleagues or clients where those rules apply.

In more recent times, accountants have engaged us at HWLE Lawyers to protect their businesses by acting against the Board where it has alleged different types of conduct.

• Unregistered delivery of tax agent services – the Board alleged an accountant was enabling unregistered tax agent services to be provided to the public by another financial services business.
• Lack of supervision, control and oversight – the Board alleged a group of accountants did not supervise, control and oversee the tax agent services provided to the public because of the sheer number of clients serviced by the accounting business.
• Outstanding tax obligations – the Board alleged an accountant failed to satisfy personal tax obligations, including tax obligations of associated entities, to the ATO. The alleged breaches were in the hundreds.
• Breach of best interest duty and confidentiality – the Board alleged an accountant breached their fiduciary duty and duty of confidentiality to their client by relying on confidential information in an associated business transaction.
• Misrepresentation to the ATO – the Board alleged an accountant was dishonest and lacked integrity by misrepresenting facts to the ATO and by producing a false document to its audit team to support a tax deduction that had been claimed.
• Lack of supervision, control and oversight – the Board alleged an accountant did not supervise, control and oversee access to the ATO portal (also known as “Online Services for Agents”) by allowing persons to complete unauthorised transactions on the portal, thereby obtaining GST refunds from the ATO.

There are solutions for accountants and ways forward in each of these types of cases. Crucially, proactive and fulsome engagement with the Board is an essential ingredient to success. Accountants have engaged us at HWLE Lawyers where they are the subject of disputes, complaints, and professional investigations involving the Board and the professional bodies.

The team that usually acts for clients in these matters include Vincent Licciardi (Partner), Alissa Lee (Senior Associate), Anne Tissera (Senior Associate), Isabelle Smith (Senior Associate), Aidan Del Socorro (Solicitor) and/or Eric Lay (Solicitor).

This article was written by Vincent Licciardi, Partner.