1. 30-10(1) - You must act honestly and with integrity
2. 30-10(2) - You must comply with the taxation laws in the conduct of your personal affairs
3. 30-10(3) - If you receive money or other property from or on behalf of a client, and you hold the money or other property on trust, you must account to your client for the money or other property
4. 30-10(9) - 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 the client

On 28 September 2023, after completing an investigation, the Tax Practitioners Board (the Board) decided to terminate the tax agent registration of The Tax Shop (Darwin) Pty Ltd (the Company) for two years. The Board found that the Company breached subsections 30-10(1), 30-10(2), 30-10(3) and 30-10(9) of the Code of Professional Conduct (the Code) in the TASA.
The Board found that the Company breached the Code by:
1. adding a director to the Company who the Board had previously found a not fit and proper person and deliberately failing to notify the Board of the appointment of the director
2. providing false and misleading responses to the Board’s enquiries
3. adding, removing and accessing ATO taxpayer records without obtaining taxpayer authorisation
4. failing to lodge income tax returns, business activity statements and instalment activity statements by their respective due dates
5. failing to pay its integrated client account debt by its due date
6. failing to notify the Board within 30 days of a change in circumstances
7. failing to account to a client for Commonwealth funds received on trust
8. failing to take reasonable care in ascertaining the state of affairs for three clients by relying on insufficient and/or inappropriate information, or no information to determine clients’ employer, salary and wage income and tax withheld.
The Board also found it failed to meet the requirement that each director is a fit and proper person under paragraph 20-5(3)(a) of the TASA, as the Board found both its directors were not fit and proper persons.
Given the above, the Board decided to terminate The Tax Shop (Darwin) Pty Ltd’s registration as a tax agent in accordance with subparagraph 60-125(2)(b)(i) and 30-30 of the TASA, on the basis of its breaches of the Code, and determined it should also be prohibited from re-applying for registration in accordance with subsection 40-25(1) of the TASA for a period of two years.