The new Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) has rejected an application on appeal by former Gold Coast tax agent, Philippe Colin (also known as Phil Colin) to overturn the Tax Practitioners Board’s (TPB) decision to terminate his registration and impose a 4-year ban from reapplying.
Mr Colin’s registration was terminated after the TPB found he had breached 5 items of the Code of Professional Conduct (Code) and no longer satisfied the fit and proper person requirements to be registered.
A TPB investigation ascertained Mr Colin lodged amendments to clients’ income tax returns without their authorisation and claimed unsubstantiated deductions despite receiving repeated warnings from the Australian Taxation Office and a previous sanction from the TPB, where he was ordered to complete a course in ethics.
In addition, he failed to pay his own tax debts by the due dates and did not correctly report amounts in his income tax returns and business activity statements. Mr Colin also advertised his company (Southern Beaches Accounting Pty Ltd) could provide tax agent services when it was not legally able to.
Mr Colin showed total disregard for his obligations when he continued to breach the Code following his TPB sanction. He went on to mislead the TPB, in his renewal application, by withholding the fact, he was subject to an exclusion decision by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission. The exclusion was imposed on Mr Colin for making false and misleading statements and posting an advertisement on Gumtree seeking to engage the services of a third party that would enable him to continue operating his business after his registration was terminated.
The TPB register contains more information on this matter.
TPB Chair, Mr Peter de Cure AM, welcomed the ART’s first TPB decision reaffirming the importance of the public interest in tax practitioners acting with integrity and complying with their professional obligations. He said: ‘Community confidence in the tax profession is paramount and the TPB is committed to protecting the public and ensuring the overall integrity of the tax profession and the tax system.’
‘In this instance, Mr Colin did not sufficiently acknowledge the seriousness of the breaches of the Code and taxation laws and there is a strong need to protect the public from this behaviour. The public need to see that appropriate sanctions have been imposed where a tax agent has fallen well short of the appropriate standards of professional and ethical conduct’, Mr de Cure said.
Mr de Cure went on to say ‘Tax practitioners demonstrating a serious and blatant disregard for tax laws jeopardise the good work of honest tax practitioners and put the integrity of the tax profession and system at risk. Where tax practitioners engage in such behaviours, the TPB will take swift and firm compliance action to support a level playing field and safeguard the public.’
About the Tax Practitioners Board
The TPB regulates tax practitioners in order to protect consumers. The TPB aims to assure the community that tax practitioners meet appropriate standards of professional and ethical conduct. Follow us on X, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Wednesday, 15 January 2025