ATO New Agent Obligations

The ATO has recently added some additional hoops for tax agents to jump through when taking on new clients. As well as some complicated homework for potential WBA clients.

The aim was to make it harder for would be scammers to use taxpayers TFNs to access your ATO records and lodge fraudulent returns to generate refunds.

True to form, the best laid plans always go awry and good intentions always have unintended consequences.

As a result of the changes tax agents are now required to

1. Send all correspondence with Tax File Numbers removed. (This is an old one)

2. Verify the identity of new clients with photo ID and make a note on file.

3. Wait for new clients to authorise us to act as their agent via their MyGov account

So, what does the above look like in practice?

TFNs and correspondence

You will not receive any correspondence from us with Tax file numbers visible. It doesn’t matter what we send you, the TFN should not be visible on any document.

We recommend you do not email us your TFN or the TFN of any employees.

It’s best to call our office and communicate TFNs verbally.

Verifying your identity

Please ensure you bring a valid photo ID to your next appointment.

We will make a note on file that we have sighted your ID and take down some details, like drivers licence number.

Authorising your new tax agent

New clients will need to authorise WBA as their tax agent. We have attached instructions on how to authorise us with the ATO at the bottom of this post.

The MyGovID app will need to set up before attending our office.

To do this download the MyGov ID app and follow the prompts.

Generally, this can be done within 5-10 minutes and will require a valid Driver’s licence and a Medicare card. You can use other forms of government issued ID.

The agent linking process will need to be completed by the taxpayer. We are unable to assist with this. The ATO will not assist us if we call on your behalf before the linking process is complete. (We have tried!)

Once the Agent linking process is completed by the taxpayer we have additional ATO tasks to attend to our end.

The above will only impact any new clients coming to WBA for the first time.

However, with scammers becoming more sophisticated and AI more prolific, there is likely to be more changes on the way for all of us, tax agents and existing clients.

Watch this space. We will endeavour to keep you all in the loop as changes come though.