As ICB has been telling you all along.
If you provide your BAS Services through a company, trust, partnership etc then both yourself and the entity MUST register with the Tax Practitioners Board.
We are aware of the advice that has been provided previously by the TPB enquiry phone lines and others that have stated that only the entity is required to be registered with the Board. We are aware of people who have tried to register both themselves and their entity only to be told not to.
The Board has now advised again that the correct position for all Agents to be in is:
- If you are a sole trader just trading as yourself in your provision of services to others - then you must register
- If you are an individual that works through a business entity of any type then the business must be registered AND sufficient number of registered individuals must be involved in that business. So, if it is just you and it is your business then you and the entity must both be registered.
We again clarify:
- Employees who do the books and prepare the BAS's for only their employers business entities ARE NOT required to be registered.
- Not every person inside a business needs to be registered - ie in a Bookkeeping business, many employees may be providing BAS Services to various clients as long as the entity is registered as an Agent and also that entity has a sufficient number of individuals involved to supervise all those that provide the services. That number of registered and supervisor BAS Agents maybe only one, it maybe more.
- The law DOES NOT require that every business must use a BAS Agent to lodge their BAS's
LODGEMENT EXTENSION
Following 1 July 2010, BAS Agents will be able to utilise an extension to lodging BAS's 4 weeks later if lodged electronically through the BAS Agents ECI or Portal.
If you are lodging the BAS through the clients business portal the extension will NOT apply