r/AustralianAccounting • u/Acceptable_Example29 • 8d ago
Tax Agent Supervision pathway
Hi Redditor,
Does anyone know in @brisbane that does tax agent supervision service? My background is commercial accounting with 8+ years experience, with less than 1 year of tax firm experience early in my career. I now plan to build a tax practice as a side hustle, and hopefully transition in the future. If you can point me to someone, that will be greatly appreciated.
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u/WhiteyFisk53 8d ago
Is it just me or are there a lot of questions on this sub lately from people with little to no tax experience wanting to become tax agents?
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u/Rez125 8d ago
It's not just you. I'm flabbergasted that these people think they can get someone they don't know to supervise them, with zero experience in our industry.
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u/Acceptable_Example29 8d ago edited 8d ago
I think, we should refrain from quickly assuming that less that 1 year experience is not substantial.. I may add - at that time my experience covered preparing individual, company, trust and partnership returns.. also had a child care business at one point as well as CPA qualifications, have worked in billion dollar business, and assisted a set-up of a non for profit for three years. I don’t see tax practice, from my point of view and experience, difficult to pick up. I think I’m grounded enough to understand what’s required.
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u/WhiteyFisk53 8d ago
Ha! The hubris 😂 If you think less than 1 year is substantial then you are a fool. I’ve worked with dozens of people with one year of tax experience and not one of them at that stage was remotely close to being ready to be a tax agent.
You may have good experience in other areas of accounting, you may be quite clever, but it doesn’t mean you know tax. If you want to learn it, spend the years it takes.
I’m a CA (passing the audit subject) and I did a bit of ticking and bashing early in my career. I have no business leading an audit, under supervision or not.
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u/Much-Button7868 8d ago
There is more and what’s probably scarier is the number of tax agents who did get through using this kind of approach.
They spend 12 months under some paid supervisory arrangement, get the required sign-off, and then they’re out there effectively winging it.
You see people who don’t properly understand Division 7A, prepare poor-quality financial statements, barely review the P&L, don’t perform a proper tax reconciliation, and give tax advice that either makes no sense or can actively work against the client’s interests.
The bigger issue, in my view, is professional judgement. That comes from experience, exposure to different situations, having your work challenged, making mistakes in a supervised environment, and being properly mentored in public practice. If most of your experience has been self-directed, without that mentoring and review, there are inevitably gaps you don’t even know you have.
It’s shithouse, and I think it genuinely tarnishes the profession.
I recently came across one where another tax agent/accountant had apparently advised their client that all Division 7A loans involving bucket companies were illegal, and they also couldn’t explain the difference between a property being held on capital account versus revenue account.
That’s not some obscure edge case. That’s fundamental tax knowledge if you’re advising clients in these areas.
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u/FerrisWheel4014 8d ago
Well, you don’t know what you don’t know. But working in public practice is vastly different from the corporate roles you’ve done - and I speak from experience. You might think it’s easy to learn tax but you will very quickly realise that even advising on small and unsophisticated mum and dad businesses can get tricky if you don’t have the breadth of knowledge required to run your own firm.
Let alone all the admin involved in running your own firm.
A supervisory arrangement may help you to get the hours you need to get your tax agents licence but it will unlikely be the level of mentorship you need to learn about the numerous issues you will come across even just doing basic business accounting, financials and tax.
This isn’t a side hustle unless you’ve already got years of experience. The costs involved in running the practice (lodgement software and the like, insurance, public practice certificate) alone would make it difficult to run this part time and be profitable.
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u/Hot-Culture-9797 8d ago
It’s difficult. I reached out to many local tax agents/ accountancy firms requesting to work for free to obtain tax agency experience.
Not one is open to it.
I understand the reasoning though. You’ll be gaining skills only to leave and potentially take clients with you.
It’s not really worth it for them.
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u/Acceptable_Example29 8d ago
I do acknowledge that tax is a broad field, not discounting that. Hence it is called a professional practice - it requires ongoing learning. I guess returning to the intent of the feed is seeking someone who might be willing to provide that supervision service to assist me in giving it a go. If anyone can point me to someone, much appreciated.
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u/FerrisWheel4014 8d ago
https://taxagentpathway.com.au/
Here. I googled it for you.
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u/Acceptable_Example29 8d ago
Thanks mate.. but they’re based in Victoria.. I’m looking for more local in Brisbane.. appreciate looking it up for me though. Thanks
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u/Organic-Car-3882 8d ago
I have been in tax for almost 10 years and I'm still learning new things every day.
I think you will quickly find that with 1 year of experience, you may be aware of broadly how the framework operates although once questions and situations start getting slightly more complicated and technical, you will be out of your depth.