Australian compliance update on tax-agent identity checks, legal practice records, Victorian property rules, AUSTRAC cooperation and proposed AML/CTF powers.
Weekly overview
Identity, authority and reliable records are the central themes this week. The Tax Practitioners Board terminated a tax-agent company’s registration after finding serious client verification and record-keeping failures. A Victorian contempt case reinforced the need for legal-practice records and credentials to remain accessible during regulatory intervention. Victoria’s strengthened auction and fixed-date sales requirements are now fully operational. At the national level, the Senate began considering proposed legislation that would allow the AUSTRAC CEO to restrict or prohibit high-risk mechanisms used by regulated businesses. AUSTRAC also strengthened Pacific cooperation against cross-border financial crime.
Key dates and developments
Legal practices: Practice records must remain accessible
Jurisdiction: Victoria
Queensland Law Society’s Proctor reported that a Victorian lawyer was ordered to serve seven days of a 45-day custodial sentence for criminal contempt. The contempt arose from the lawyer’s refusal to provide email credentials required by a manager appointed to the practice and ordered by the Supreme Court of Victoria.
The court considered the non-compliance deliberate. The underlying penalty judgment was delivered earlier, but publication of the professional report on 16 October brings the practice-management implications into focus.
Why it matters: Client confidentiality and cybersecurity controls do not remove a practitioner’s obligation to comply with lawful regulatory or court-directed access. Practices that depend on credentials held by one principal also face continuity, supervision and records-management risks.
Practical consideration: Confirm that business email, document-management and trust-account systems have controlled recovery processes. Keep an up-to-date register of system owners and administrators, with procedures for regulatory intervention, incapacity and staff departure. Access should remain secure, but not dependent on one person’s cooperation.
Source: Queensland Law Society Proctor, “Lawyer faces prison over refusal to provide email log-in”, 16 October 2026. Proctor
Accountants, bookkeepers and tax practitioners: TPB acts on verification failures
Jurisdiction: National
The Tax Practitioners Board terminated the registration of Xact Taxation Pty Ltd, formerly trading as Tax Refund on Spot, and prohibited the company from reapplying for three years.
The TPB found serious failures involving client identity verification and record keeping. These included accessing ATO information without authorisation, creating false proof-of-identity records, changing bank details without adequate verification and lodging returns without proper client authority. Client refunds were also redirected.
The TPB said registered practitioners should verify new clients, recheck existing clients where appropriate, confirm the authority of representatives, examine identification for signs of tampering or fraud and retain accurate evidence of the checks performed.
Why it matters: This is a confirmed professional-conduct enforcement action, not an AUSTRAC case. However, it illustrates the same control weaknesses that can undermine customer due diligence: false verification evidence, inadequate authority checks, poor supervision and unreliable records.
The obligations described by the TPB apply to registered tax practitioners. Accountants or bookkeepers who are not registered tax or BAS agents should assess which professional, privacy and AML/CTF requirements apply to their own services.
Practical action: Test a sample of recently onboarded and remotely serviced clients. Confirm that staff can demonstrate who was verified, what evidence was examined, who authorised the engagement and any change to bank details, and when supervisory review occurred. Treat changes to refund or payment destinations as a higher-risk event requiring independent confirmation.
Source: Tax Practitioners Board, “TPB terminates tax agent company over client verification failures”, 12 October 2026. Tax Practitioners Board
Jewellers and precious-metal or precious-stone dealers
Jurisdiction: National
No significant compliance development identified this week.
Practical consideration: The week’s broader verification lessons remain relevant. Dealers should ensure records can demonstrate the customer’s identity, the authority of anyone acting for another person, beneficial ownership where relevant, and the reason for unusual cash or third-party payment arrangements.
Conveyancers
Jurisdiction: National, with a Victorian operational consideration
No significant compliance development identified this week.
Victorian conveyancers should nevertheless account for the property-sale changes described below when coordinating auction and fixed-date transactions. The new advertising and reserve-price obligations primarily sit with estate agents, but a delayed or non-compliant campaign may affect the transaction timetable.
Practical consideration: Build an early check into Victorian matters for the intended sale method, auction date and agent’s compliance timetable. Separately verify purchaser identity and payment instructions before handling deposits or settlement funds.
Real estate professionals: Victorian auction rules now operational
Jurisdiction: Victoria
Victoria’s strengthened price-transparency rules reached a material commencement point on 16 October. Auctions and fixed-date sales held from that date are subject to the new Property Price Statement and comparable-property requirements.
Agents must publish the seller’s reserve price as a single dollar amount at least seven days before an auction or fixed-date sale, and update advertising and the Property Price Statement. Consumer Affairs Victoria states that the sale cannot proceed if the reserve-price deadline is missed. The new statement must also be displayed prominently in online advertising.
Separate requirements to publish a sold price within seven days after an unconditional sale, and retain public access to the statement for at least 18 months unless an exemption applies, commenced for relevant sales on 1 October.
Why it matters: The rules convert pricing decisions into time-stamped, auditable compliance events. Buyers’ agents and developers should also understand the changes when reviewing campaign information or engaging selling agents.
Practical action: Use a campaign checklist that records receipt of the reserve price, the seven-day deadline, each advertising update and approval of the final statement. Audit current online listings to ensure the statement is prominent and consistent with the advertised price.
Source: Consumer Affairs Victoria, “New changes to property sales and underquoting laws”, updated 2 October 2026. Consumer Affairs Victoria
AUSTRAC and Australia’s AML/CTF regime
Proposed high-risk mechanism power enters the Senate
Jurisdiction: National
On 12 October, the Senate read the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2026 a first time. The second reading was moved and debate was adjourned.
If enacted, the bill would establish a framework allowing the AUSTRAC CEO to restrict or prohibit reporting entities from using a high-risk product, service, delivery channel or other mechanism. The proposed power is intended to respond to emerging methods that facilitate money laundering, terrorism financing, scams and other serious crime.
Status: This is proposed legislation. The Senate’s consideration does not itself alter current reporting-entity obligations.
Practical consideration: Businesses should monitor the bill, but should not describe the proposed power as enacted. Risk assessments should already identify the products, technologies and delivery channels used to provide designated services, including whether they make customers, transactions or beneficial owners harder to identify.
Sources:
- Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, Senate, AML/CTF Amendment Bill 2026 first and second readings, 12 October 2026. Search Australian Parliaments
- Parliamentary Library, Bills Digest: Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2026, 20 March 2026.
Pacific financial-crime cooperation
AUSTRAC co-hosted the Pacific Financial Intelligence Community Plenary and Pacific Supervisors Forum in Sydney from 12 to 15 October. Participants focused on intelligence sharing, regulatory capability and cooperation against money laundering, organised crime, fraud, scams and misuse of emerging technologies.
This does not create a new obligation for Australian businesses. It does signal continued supervisory attention to cross-border transactions and criminal networks operating across jurisdictions.
Source: AUSTRAC, “Pacific partners deepen cooperation to combat organised crime and illicit finance”, 12 October 2026. AUSTRAC
Cross-industry insight: Verification must produce reliable evidence
LawMatter analysis: This week’s developments connect three elements of effective compliance: verified identity, verified authority and accessible records.
A completed checklist is not sufficient if the underlying evidence is false, incomplete or cannot be produced. Practices should be able to reconstruct who performed a check, what information was relied on, how exceptions were resolved, who approved higher-risk activity and whether critical records remain accessible under controlled conditions.
What to watch next week
- Further Senate consideration or amendment of the AML/CTF Amendment Bill 2026.
- Any AUSTRAC guidance on how the proposed high-risk mechanism power would interact with existing risk assessments and AML/CTF programs.
- Early Victorian regulatory guidance or enforcement commentary following the 16 October property-sales commencement.
- Further TPB guidance or enforcement concerning remote client verification and changes to bank or refund details.
LawMatter consideration
Comply.LM can help practices turn identity, authority and source-of-funds checks into consistent workflows with evidence linked to each decision. The immediate priority is to test whether current records would withstand regulatory review, rather than simply confirming that a policy exists.