As a registered tax agent we must confirm who you are before we lodge for you. That rule comes from the Tax Practitioners Board and applies to every client.
A second set of rules covers money laundering (hiding money that comes from crime). They are the AML/CTF rules (anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing), run by a government agency called AUSTRAC. Since 1 July 2026 they cover some accounting work, including setting up companies, trusts and self-managed super funds.
So we confirm who you are before we act for you. For a company or trust, we also check the people who own or control it. We keep these records for seven years, as the rules require.
For most people the check is short and done on a phone. Sometimes we need more documents, and we tell you if so. We never ask for bank passwords.
We also check names against sanctions lists, and against lists of people in senior public roles and their close family. We keep watching those lists while you are our client. Where the law requires it, we report to AUSTRAC.
If you are setting up a new company or trust, we check each director and trustee at the same time.