Accountant advice is no better than that of advisers says ASIC


Accountants and financial tax advisers (TFAs) cannot lay claim to providing better quality advice than ordinary financial advisers, according to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
What is more, ASIC has made clear that it remains strongly opposed to any move towards reinstating the so-called accountant’s exemption, albeit that the regulator is prepared to support a simplification of the accountant’s limited licensing regime.
The regulator’s views are made crystal clear in its submission to the Review of the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) recently released by Treasury.
Amid recent calls by accounting groups for reinstatement of the accountant’s exemption, ASIC said however, that while it did not consider that there was any justification for reinstating the old accountants’ exemption (or modified version of it), “we do acknowledge that there are aspects of the accountants’ limited AFS licence regime that are to difficult to understand and comply with”.
“We would support simplifying the regime through law reform,” it said. “We would be happy to provide input to any such simplification process.”
“Finally, we note that through our work, we have not seen evidence that Tax Financial Advisers (TFAs) or accountants provide more compliant advice or better financial advice for consumers than other financial advisers and do not believe that concessions from the financial advice regime for accountants can be justified on this basis,” the ASIC submission said.
Recommended for you
With new entrant numbers up 90 for the calendar YTD, Wealth Data has revealed the top licensee owners that have onboarded new advisers.
Sequoia Financial Group’s business simplification program has led to a strong profit growth for the first half of FY25, saying it is “out of the congestion and onto the freeway”.
The Federal Court has frozen the assets of two individuals, Ferras Merhi and Osama Saad, for their connections to the troubled Shield Master Fund.
TAL has appointed two experienced financial services professionals to its board including a new chair for the business to replace Mark Joiner.