Registered tax adviser numbers return to 19,000

In a statement, Tax Practitioners Board chair Ian Taylor said “just over 19,000” advisers had been registered with the board before 31 December 2015, but only 13,000 of these had applied to renew their registration by the 31 January 2018 deadline.

However, Mr Taylor noted that many of those who did not renew their registrations were no longer representatives of AFSLs, and that the number of new registrations had brought the total in-line with its previous number.

“Although approximately 6,000 tax financial adviser notifiers did not renew their registration, we have had the same number of new tax financial advisers register through the transitional and standard registration options,” Mr Taylor said.

“Most of the tax financial adviser notifiers that did not renew were no longer representatives of an Australian Financial Services licensee. Others had notified to register when they did not need to, for example, or they did not actually provide tax financial advice services.”

Mr Taylor warned advisers who had not registered with the Tax Practitioners Board against providing tax advice, cautioning that “significant penalties may apply” to unregistered advisers who do provide tax advice.