At a glance
- The Australian community expects increasingly high ethical and professional standards from practitioners.
- New reforms in areas like anti-money laundering will put more scrutiny on accountants from 2026.
- Basic errors like falling behind on CPD or personal tax returns can result in sanctions.
- Regularly reviewing systems and consulting external advisors is important.
Finance professionals play a crucial role helping guide Australians through complex systems and the community is demanding increasingly high standards from the practitioners who serve them.
Building a successful practice is about more than simply growing a client list. It’s about navigating changing regulatory, ethics and education requirements to make sure you are on the right side of the law.
Costly mistakes can be avoided by simply investing the time in understanding current policies and completing both internal and external checks of systems.
Here are five common areas of non-compliance that are worth your review.
1. Failure to Maintain CPD requirements
Professions like accounting are fast-moving and clients and regulators both expect practitioners to keep up with best practice.
Meeting continuing professional development (CPD) requirements is crucial not only to deliver the best service to clients, but also for maintaining registrations and professional memberships.
Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) members need to complete 120 hours of CPD over a three-year period with a minimum of 20 hours devoted to three key competency areas: technical and product knowledge, management and professional skills and professional and ethical standards.
Tax and BAS agents also need to ensure they meet the professional education requirements of the Tax Practitioners Board to remain as registered agents.
Keeping records of professional development activities is as important as completing them in the first place.
Failure to show evidence that you have kept up with learning requirements can result in a range of penalties, including having professional memberships suspended or being sanctioned for falling foul of the Code of Professional Conduct for tax practitioners.
2. Not keeping track of AML and CTF rules
The government has upped the fight against global money laundering in recent years, with the attorney-general’s department noting Australia is “an attractive destination to store and legitimise the proceeds of crime”.
Large scale reforms of the national anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) framework will place further scrutiny on financial professionals and how they identify and prevent suspicious transactions.
Professionals like financial advisors are already subject to the AML/CTF Act and must fulfil a range of obligations including enrolling with AUSTRAC and maintaining a program within their businesses to manage money laundering-related risks.
Reforms to the Act mean that from March 2026, a broader range of practitioners including accountants will be subject to AML and CTF laws if they provide certain services.
Partner in risk consulting at Grant Thornton Australia, Neil Jeans, says it was important that operators plan for the upcoming changes.
“Start now – understand whether you are providing ‘designated services’ [that will be covered by the laws], understand whether you have the right capabilities internally and whether this will impact your business,” he says.
Each year, AUSTRAC takes a range of enforcement action against operators who don’t comply with anti-money laundering laws, ranging from taking companies to court to issuing fines for breaches.
Failing to complete tasks like lodging an annual compliance report to the regulator can carry a fine of close to $19,000.
Katherine Shamai, another partner in risk consulting at Grant Thornton Australia, says it was important to understand that the regulator has lots of tools to pursue businesses that aren’t holding up their anti-money laundering obligations.
“We often see the big court cases in the media… but there are other ways of enforcement which still require a lot of time and energy for the reporting entity to remediate,” she says.
This includes “remedial directions”, which are orders to take actions to prevent breaches of the law in future.
“Just because [an] action is not a big court case, doesn’t mean it’s not impactful to organisations,” Shamai says.
Jeans notes that in general terms, practitioners are expected to understand evolving risks around money laundering and have plans in place to mitigate these.
“The general activity in the enforcement space has been around a failure to understand and address risk,” he says.
3. Failing to keep up ethical standards
Every year, regulators investigate and act against professionals for breaching codes of conduct and ethical requirements.
Joining a body like the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) means signing on to codes of behaviour including standards set out by the Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board (APESB).
Tenets like avoiding conflicts of interest and ensuring client confidentiality are core expectations for professionals across the accounting, finance and tax advice industries. Ethical issues are among the most common types of formal complaints that the IPA receives about members.
Breaching standards of professional conduct can lead to disciplinary action and potential suspension from membership organisations, or sanctions from a regulator like the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB).
The TPB investigates allegations that registered practitioners have fallen foul of the Code of Professional Conduct and can apply a range of sanctions including terminating registration or even applying to the Federal Court for civil penalties in cases of serious misconduct.
In the past, the regulator has cancelled the registrations of individuals and companies for breaches and stopped them from re-applying for a maximum period of five years for breaches including failing to pass refunds on to clients in a timely manner or making changes to their tax returns without consent.
There has been an increased focus on breach reporting in recent years and registered tax agents must remember they are now expected to follow reporting guidelines for serious breaches of the Code of Professional Conduct.
This compels them to report ethical breaches to the board, either relating to their own conduct or that of other practitioners. The TPB has provided guidance about how this works in practice.
4. Incorrect tax filings
Taking a role in the finance sector means helping to uphold the tenets of Australia’s taxation system – and regulators and professional membership organisations take that obligation seriously.
The second element of the Code of Professional Conduct for tax agents is to “comply with the taxation laws in the conduct of your personal affairs”.
Making errors on personal tax filings, Business Activity Statements or when paying GST can also capture the attention of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and involve both time and potentially fines to fix this.
“General activity in the enforcement space has been around a failure to understand and address risk.”
Neil Jeans, Partner in risk consulting, Grant Thornton Australia
The ATO has recently flagged a range of focus areas for smaller businesses. From March 2025, businesses with a history of not complying with tax requirements like BAS filings may be moved from quarterly to monthly GST reporting requirements, in a bid to “embed good business habits”.
Failing to get your own tax affairs in order could also result in sanctions that might prevent you from doing business.
The TPB Board has previously terminated an agent’s registration for failing to lodge tax returns on time and not making sure a company she was the director of complied with superannuation requirements.
5. Failing to understand regulatory changes
Running a business in the finance sector is a time-consuming endeavour and staying up to date with industry changes can be a challenge for many founders.
But the costs of accidentally falling foul of regulations can be significant, so it’s important to have a range of advisors available to review procedures and stress-test processes.
“Good corporate governance involves having an external party review your processes and procedures,” BDO Business services partner and IPA board member, Mark Pizzacalla says.
“Whether you run a small or large practice, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operations and miss the bigger picture.
“An external review can help identify gaps that may not always be immediately obvious, ensuring that your firm stays compliant and effective in the long run.”
Keeping connected to professional associations and updates from regulators like AUSTRAC, the ATO and the TPB is one of the best ways to stay up to date with upcoming changes and best practice.
“Being proactive in seeking out legislative updates, attending professional development sessions, and leveraging industry resources will help ensure they remain ahead of the curve,” Pizzacalla says.
The IPA’s Tax Roadshow is a complete guide to tax planning and preparation for the 2025 tax season. More information here.
