Three Wise Monkeys

3IX37

After two Federal Court cases penalised unregistered tax agents who provided tax return services and one Tribunal case where deregistered a tax agent for preparing fraudulent returns, the Chair of the Tax Practitioner Board (TPB) on 20 Sep 2012 issued a message via its website and affirmed the courts’ decisions and issued two exposure drafts to reiterate the code of professional conduct and explain how the reasonable care should be taken to find out the facts from clients and to apply tax law correctly.

It seems ATO has raised its battle flag toward those three wise monkeys. The behaviour of “see no evil, say no evil, hear no evil” will be penalised. The message from both ATO and TPB is, for a monkey, the best thing it can get is only a peanut, and this will be followed by a whip.
  
Reference:
http://www.tpb.gov.au/TPB/Publications_and_legislation/Board_policies_and_explanatory_information/TPB/Publications_and_legislation/0063_Exposure_Drafts.aspx
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/AATA/2012/615.html