At a glance
- An ombudsman’s review validates agents’ complaints about poor service from the ATO.
- Key issues include long waits, inconsistent advice, and an unfit agent phone line.
- The IPA welcomes the findings but fears the ATO will again be slow to act.
For years, IPA members and other tax practitioners have argued they get too many slow and inadequate responses when they query the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
Now comes official validation. A review from the Tax Ombudsman, Ruth Owen, agrees with many tax practitioners that the level and quality of service delivered to tax agents by the ATO is not good enough.
The report, released on 16 October 2025, suggests the ATO system is struggling with long phone service wait times, inconsistent advice, and a fundamental mismatch between what agents need and what the ATO provides.
The IPA has welcomed the review while raising concerns that the ATO may react to this new criticism as it has to previous critical reports.
The ATO has also already rejected one key recommendation from the review – that it should route agents’ calls to experienced agents right away. The ombudsman in turn has signalled that she will do a more in-depth review of the ATO’s online service for agents in 2026.
All that suggests the differences between the ATO and its critics on this issue has further to run.
The ombudsman’s verdict
The ombudsman launched the review in response to a rising chorus of dissatisfaction from tax agents, the IPA, and other bodies.
The ombudsman points out that tax agents lodged 62% of individual returns and 96% of organisational returns in 2022-23. That makes agents’ relationship with the ATO an important element of the nation’s tax administration. And it makes the system to support agents a crucial piece of the nation’s revenue infrastructure.
At the heart of that system are the ATO’s secure online channel for agent correspondence with the ATO (practice mail) and the registered agent phone line.
Owen’s investigation has found that practice mail “is not fit for purpose and can lead to delays in fulfilling clients’ business”.
But Owen’s review directs much of its toughest criticism to the registered agent phone line. This phone line was the target of an early 2025 IPA submission. That submission said, among other things, that calls take too long, service quality has fallen, staff are too junior and insufficiently trained, and the use of contractors is problematic.
The review endorses many of the IPA’s criticisms.
Though agent calls do get queue priority, the review says the agent phone line is staffed by the same people who answer calls from the general public. “These officers are relatively junior staff with very little tax technical training and should not be expected to be able to answer complex or overly technical calls,” the review says.
“It is of utmost importance that the ATO improves the service levels of the registered agent phone line.”
Letty Chen, tax and super adviser, IPA
The review also shines a light on the use of externally contracted call centre officers, who it says end up receiving most agents’ calls. It says that around half of these call centre officers have less than 12 months experience working with the ATO.
It also says that changes in call centre providers and high turnover of call centre officers over the past two years may have degraded ATO responses.
Time for agent recognition
In a media release, Owen called on the ATO to acknowledge tax agents’ role in the system. “It’s time for the ATO to recognise that, publicly,” she said.
She highlighted the lack of a dedicated team servicing the registered agent phone line, saying that agents think they are speaking with a specialist team.
“The ATO provides a faster service to agents,” she said, “but they expect a more specialised service designed to meet their needs.
“The call centre service works for general calls from taxpayers, but agents are more likely to have more technical or complex questions to resolve.”
Owen also said she was “disappointed the ATO has not accepted that the service it provides to tax agents by phone is not meeting agents’ needs and must change”.
An IPA vindication
The IPA has been lobbying for years to have the ATO improve its responses to tax agents. In the IPA’s first response to the review, IPA tax and super adviser Letty Chen has welcomed both the review and the ATO’s agreement with 13 of its 14 points.
But she has also noted a key point made by the review: many of the issues raised with the ombudsman this year are exactly the same issues raised in the Australian National Audit Office’s 2022 audit. The review itself also notes that similar issues were raised in the Australian Public Service Commissioner’s 2025 capability review of the ATO.
“Not enough has been done on known pain points,” Chen says.
“We have heard from our members about the lengthy delays to resolution, declining service quality, lack of frontline staff expertise and inconsistencies in the service provided. Practitioners often cannot recover the costs of these inefficiencies nor are they conducive to helping clients meet their obligations.
Chen singled out the ATO’s use of inexperienced staff on the agent phone line as the most concerning aspect of the review.
“It is of utmost importance that the ATO improves the service levels of the registered agent phone line as a matter of urgency.
“The phone line is not simply an alternative to using the ATO website or online services for agents. Sometimes the practitioner has no choice but to use it.
“We caution against another period of slow action.”
Chen also said the IPA “would like to see a much quicker and more efficient escalation from frontline call takers to technical experts as part of the suite of improvements”.
Possible fixes
The ombudsman’s review argues that some of the problems can be fixed by involving agents more in the design of the ATO’s services – a process sometimes known as “co-design”. Getting agents involved in designing the services they use, and how they are measured, will help to ensure better outcomes for all,” the review says. “When agents are involved in co-design, ATO services are more effective and better received for the benefit of both agents and their clients.”
Owen said she was “pleased to see the ATO’s commitment to improving its digital services for agents, to working more collaboratively with agents and to measuring agent satisfaction”.
“Maybe by understanding agents’ needs better, the ATO may identify how its service can improve and implement further solutions,” she added.
Learn more about how the IPA is advocating for the profession here.
