BAS AGENT LAWS > Choices for Bookkeepers
What are my options if I don’t become a BAS Agent?
If you are not a BAS Agent, you have three options.
The first option is to not provide bookkeeping services that amount to “BAS Services”. However, given how broadly BAS Services are defined by the Act, this will be difficult. It requires that your services be confined to mere data entry and bank reconciliations.
The second option is that once you have performed your bookkeeping services, you require that your client visit their tax agent / accountant to have your work reviewed and the BAS lodged. This shifts the client’s reliance to the tax agent / accountant. However, this may not appeal to many clients, firstly because they would prefer you offered the complete service, and secondly due to the higher costs imposed by tax agents.
The third option is that once you have performed your bookkeeping services, you require that your client visit another bookkeeper who has the status of BAS Agent to have their work reviewed and the BAS lodged. This shifts the client’s reliance to the BAS Agent. However, this may not appeal to many clients as they would prefer you offered the complete service, rather than them having to deal with another party to have their BAS prepared. Furthermore, as a bookkeeper, you may not feel comfortable relinquishing part-ownership of your client to another bookkeeping firm.
ABN BAS presents an attractive alternative to the above options.
With ABN BAS, it is not necessary for you to relinquish control of your client to a competing bookkeeping firm. Instead, ABN BAS – as a BAS Agent in its own right – can review and lodge the BAS for your client.
This enables you to retain the control of the client relationship and pay a per-BAS lodgement fee to ABN BAS, which you can either on-charge or mark-up to your client.
Under the ABN BAS model, the client’s reliance in the legal sense rests with ABN BAS as the lodging party. This means that you provided that you, as the client’s bookkeeper, confine your service offering to general bookkeeping services that do not involve the provision of BAS Services, you do not need to register as a BAS Agent. Importantly, however, it means that you can still provide your clients with a solution to their need for BAS Services by way of your relationship with ABN BAS while maintaining your own separate relationship with the client in so far as their general bookkeeping needs are concerned.
Click here for further information on the benefits of ABN BAS to Non-BAS Agents.
