Accountants have expressed their frustration with the Australian Tax Office, with most queries directed to call centre staff with less than 12 months’ experience.
Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen said tax agents were reporting an increasingly poor experience with the ATO’s agent phone line over the past 2 years.
Ms Owen said a review into the ATO service to agents has found evidence of a strained relationship with the tax office.
“I have been overwhelmed by the strong feedback from tax agents in this review,” she said.
“Agents are reporting an increasingly poor experience with the ATO’s agent phone line, citing inconsistent advice and a lack of suitably skilled staff.”
Ms Owen said agents played a vital role in the Australian tax system, representing 62 percent of individual taxpayers and 96 percent of other taxpayers.
“It’s time for the ATO to recognise that, publicly. Evidence from prior reviews suggests that agents’ engagement with their clients drives up tax compliance and contributes to the ATO’s goals of increasing voluntary compliance and closing the tax gap.”
She the review found no dedicated team serviced the registered agent phone line, whereas agents thought they were speaking with a specialist team.
“Most agents’ calls are directed to contracted call centre officers, with around half having less than 12 months experience with the ATO.
“They have very little tax technical training and cannot be expected to answer complex or overly technical calls.”
Ms Owen said the call centre service worked for general calls from taxpayers, but agents were more likely to have more technical or complex questions to resolve.
She said the phone line was only part of the picture when it came to ATO support for the agent community.
“The agent phone line cannot be looked at in isolation. Agents usually call the ATO because they cannot do what they need to do online. As most agents said to me, ‘I don’t want to spend my time calling the ATO. If I could do it online, I would’.”
Ms Owen said the ATO has rejected the idea of routing agents’ calls to more experienced or skilled staff.
She said the ATO’s formal response stated: “rather than creating a dedicated team to support agent calls, our focus should remain on investment in our digital channels for registered agents, training and escalation pathways”.
“I am disappointed the ATO has not accepted that the service it provides to tax agents by phone is not meeting agents’ needs and must change,” Ms Owen said.
