Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Act 2026

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Act 2026 received assent as No. 86 of 2026 and was registered on 15 September 2026. The Act is an 8-schedule omnibus measure. Schedule 1 gives the Tax Practitioners Board new powers to suspend a tax or BAS agent's registration, imposes new civil penalty provisions, and introduces criminal offences, infringement notices and enforceable undertakings for misconduct by registered agents, alongside increases to existing civil penalty amounts.

Schedule 4 amends the merger control provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, including changing the consequence of a failure to notify a notifiable acquisition from automatic voidness to voidability, adjusting the associate rules used to determine notification thresholds, and extending the period before a merger notification becomes stale. Other schedules deal with the foreign resident capital gains withholding regime, deductible gift recipient listings, and giving funds.

The Act affects registered tax and BAS agents and the businesses that engage them, as well as parties to mergers and acquisitions that are, or may become, notifiable under the Competition and Consumer Act. The text of the Act as made is now available on the Federal Register of Legislation, though the commencement provisions for each schedule should be checked individually, as different schedules may commence on different dates.