Your Association at Work May 2008

While the feedback about the guidance given by the TaxTeam is always positive, the Team members themselves are striving to look after all of the members' calls by handling your queries quickly and efficiently.

To this end, we will be more strictly implementing the "10-minute rule". This rule, limiting TaxTeam calls to 10 minutes, has in the past been implemented on a more ad hoc basis, and, unfortunately, some members still try to stretch their calls, which reduces the time available for the other members.

Therefore, to ensure that the Team can get back to all members in a timely and efficient manner, we will now be installing timekeeping devices on all of their computers, which will provide an alert for when 8 minutes, and then 10 minutes, has been reached.

Calls longer than 10 minutes will then need to be charged an extra call.

We anticipate this measure will improve the service we can deliver to the vast majority of our members.

NTAA fellows still entitled to audit SMSFs

The Tax Office has confirmed that Fellows of the NTAA are still Approved Auditors for the purposes of the SIS Act.

Confusion has arisen because three other associations (the ICAA, CPA Australia and the NIA) have jointly introduced additional training and public practice requirements for their members.

However, these additional requirements are association specific and are not required by the Tax Office (nor the NTAA).

The Tax Office will be examining adherence to these requirements by the members of those affected associations, but not Fellows of the NTAA.

Importantly, there have been no changes to the legislative requirements to be an approved auditor, which were introduced in 1995.