Accountants and advisers baulk at industry funding model for TPB
At the same time as financial advisers have strongly objected to the cost of the industry funding model for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), accountants and advisers have baulked at a cost-recovery model for the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB).
In a joint submission filed with the Treasury just before Christmas, the major accounting groups plus the joint bodies including the Financial Planning Association (FPA) and the SMSF Association have made clear their opposition to extending a cost-recovery approach to funding the TPB.
The submission states that a structurally separate agency with its own budget and accountable authority “will ensure the TPB can operate independently and line with the TPB”.
It comes at the same time as the Government considers strong responses to a Treasury consultation around the industry funding model for ASIC, including whether the current pause in the ASIC levy be extended for a further 12 months.
Referencing the need for the TPB to have its own budget, the joint submission states: “We believe that this measure will be an important step towards improving the independence of the TPB, when supplemented with the Chair of the TPB being given the power to appoint the TPB’s CEO”.
“The ability of the TPB to operate without the influence, real or perceived, of the Commissioner of Taxation (the Commissioner) and to be independent from the pressures of revenue collection is fundamental to its regulatory role of consumer protection,” it said.
“Whilst our preferred structure is the establishment of a stand-alone statutory role for the CEO, we believe that the combined structural changes will be a substantial improvement, while allowing the TPB to retain the flexibility, agility and cost savings achieved by the current resourcing arrangements.”
“However, fees to practitioners should not be increased to fund the TPB and any fee increases must remain proportionate to other external business cost increases. In addition to revenue from fees and specific Budget measures, funds currently allocated to the TPB by the ATO should be specifically appropriated and placed in the TPB Special Account on an ongoing basis. Cost efficiencies currently generated through shared services agreements and other means should also be retained.”
The submission said the joint bodies were prepared to give their in-principle support to the establishment of a special account but wanted assurances that the TPB was not defunded.
Why is the FPA wasting resources lobbying about TPB matters?
Financial planners are persecuted and fleeced by multiple bureaucratic agencies, but thankfully TPB is no longer one of them. Surely FPA should be focusing all its lobbying efforts on those issues that primarily impact financial planners.
I think you will find that TPB will still fleece Advisers, it will just be via an extra layer of ASIC interwind.
Canberra Australian Government = World Champions of Bureaucratic Red Tape madness and costs.
If financial planners are paying for a bloated , red-tape loving bureaucracy like ASIC, the least accountants can do is pay for the TPB.
Better yet, cull all government departments; they only serve themselves.
If ASIC was a business, they’d fine themselves, for charging fees for no service.
They might even take themselves to a Royal Commission…