Tax Ombudsman report offers simple productivity gains: CPA Australia

• Ombudsman’s report shows fixing ATO Online Services for Agents (OSfA) system a simple productivity win 
• Value of reforms will extend beyond accounting profession
• Next step is a clear implementation plan, consultation with the profession

CPA Australia says the Tax Ombudsman's review of ATO Online Services for Agents (OSfA) has highlighted one of the simplest productivity improvements available to Australia's tax system, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of hours currently lost to inefficient administrative processes.

CPA Australia Tax Lead Jenny Wong said the report from Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen ahead of her address at CPA’s Tax Forum, quantifies frustrations tax practitioners have been raising for years.

"Australia's 63,865 registered tax practitioners handle the tax affairs of most taxpayers and almost all organisations. Every unnecessary phone call, every manual workaround and every re-keyed request is dead weight multiplied across the entire system.

"When highly skilled professionals spend hours chasing paperwork and navigating workarounds, that's a productivity cost. Every hour saved on administration is time that can be spent helping businesses grow and taxpayers meet their obligations. Tax agents should not be manually redacting documents, relying on phone calls for routine interactions or managing processes that could be automated.” 

Ms Wong said improving digital services for tax professionals represents a practical and achievable productivity reform.

"This is exactly the kind of practical productivity reform Australia needs. These improvements don't require legislative change, major tax reform or new compliance obligations. They require the ATO to fix processes that practitioners use every day.

"Productivity isn't only about major economic reforms. It's also about removing friction from everyday processes. When more than 63,000 tax practitioners spend less time navigating inefficient systems and more time helping clients, the benefits flow through to businesses, taxpayers and the economy as a whole."

CPA Australia supports the Ombudsman's recommendations for practical improvements to OSfA that would reduce administrative burden and improve efficiency, including better visibility of ATO communications, expanded digital functionality for BAS agents, digitisation of currently manual processes and reducing the need for practitioners to rely on phone calls for routine matters.

Ms Wong said the impact extends well beyond the accounting profession: "The value of these reforms isn't measured in minutes. It's measured in hundreds of thousands of professional hours that can be redirected to productive work across the economy."

CPA Australia welcomed the Ombudsman's recommendation that the ATO improve transparency around the way digital improvement requests are assessed and prioritised, with Ms Wong revealing that CPA members frequently report frustration that improvements seem to disappear into a system with no visibility or feedback.

"This recommendation is arguably the most important of the three – tax practitioners understand that not every suggested improvement can be implemented immediately. What they want is transparency. There should be a clear framework showing how requests are assessed, where they sit in the queue and whether they are likely to proceed."

She said agent-facing systems have historically struggled to attract the same level of attention as consumer-facing digital services, despite their importance to the broader tax administration system.

"When more than thousands of practitioners are using a platform on behalf of millions of Australians, agent experience should be considered a productivity issue, not simply a technology issue. The Ombudsman's observation that improvement requests can fall into a 'black hole' reflects exactly what many practitioners tell us."

CPA Australia also supports recommendations to improve digital communication channels between practitioners and the ATO, with Ms Wong noting the current systems were not designed for the interactions they now handle.

"A modern economy shouldn't require businesses and their advisers to wait weeks for issues that could be resolved digitally. Faster interactions mean less time in limbo and more time focused on productive activity.

In the short term, CPA Australia supports improvements including simpler categorisation, better notifications and preventing response timeframes from restarting when requests are redirected.

CPA Australia welcomed the ATO's acceptance of all three recommendations and said attention should now turn to delivery.

"The ATO has accepted the recommendations, which is a positive first step. The test now is implementation. We want to see clear timeframes, a published delivery plan and genuine consultation with the profession on which improvements should be prioritised.

Media contact

Adrienne Biscontin
External Affairs Adviser
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0429 009 691