(1) Is the Minister aware of the media release circulated by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia on 3 September 2002, which stated it had consulted for years with the Australian Taxation Office without seeing fundamental change, and still needed to be convinced that the latest commitment to change will be delivered with the necessary pace and priority.

(2) If so; (a) what are the timelines for the initial priorities for attention outlined in the joint statement released by the Commissioner of Taxation and the Tax professional bodies on 3 September 2002, (b) how will the Government monitor and ensure these specific priorities are carried out in the timeframes agreed and (c) will the Minister provide the House with information and timeframes about the legislative measures the Government will introduce to address the compliance simplifications outlined in the joint statement.

(1) and (2) The Commissioner of Taxation and Accounting and Tax Professional bodies issued a joint statement on 3 September 2002, which listed a number of specific initiatives to address matters raised by the associations, including the ICAA.

The Government announced a major increase in funding for the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in the Federal Budget. Over the next four years the ATO will receive an increase in funding of almost $1.3 billion.

The Commissioner has already made significant headway in response to the initial priorities for attention outlined in the joint media statement;

· Program coordination - on 16 September 2002 the Commissioner appointed a First Assistant Commissioner with extensive experience in senior positions in tax administration and small business issues to coordinate support programs for tax agents. This officer reports directly to the Commissioner.

· Relationship managers - on 6 September 2002 the Commissioner issued a discussion paper to the professional associations. A number of discussions have since taken place with feedback indicating overall positive responses to the concept outlined in the paper. The ATO distributed an implementation model for consultation with the professional associations on Tuesday 29 October 2002.

· Online services - on 3 October 2002 the Commissioner launched the Tax Agent Portal. This represents a new era of service delivery and relationship management for the ATO and tax professional industry. Over time, the portal will expand its range of features and level of functionality, in response to world's best practice, emerging industry needs, and ongoing feedback from tax agents.

· Lodgments - The ATO continues to work with tax practitioners and professional associations to streamline lodgement obligations for tax agents. This has been recently supplemented by a series of workshops for tax practitioners as part of the Commissioner's “Listening To The Community” initiative. The ATO maintains a continuous process of co-design for tax agent lodgment programs and requirements with representatives of the major accounting professional associations and practicing tax agents through the Lodgment Working Party. This process has, and will continue to, benefit tax agents by reducing the administrative workload associated with the lodgement obligations of their clients.

· Telephone services - The current average answer speed of a call from tax agents to the ATO is 29 seconds and when tax agents call they now go to the top of the queue. Consultations have taken place with representatives from the professional bodies with discussions focussed on new entry points and the proposed enhanced premium level of service for tax practitioners. As a result of these discussions major changes to further improve tax agent entry points for phone services were implemented on Monday 2 December 2002. With the key changes being:

- 3 contact numbers used exclusively for tax agents

- fast key codes when using the 3 entry points, and

- new simplified proof of identity arrangements.

· Enhanced transparency - The ATO is committed to an enhanced level of sharing information with tax agents. A range of reports, which better enables tax agents access to their client information via the secure (password protected) “tax agent portal” was launched on 3 October 2002 and can be found on the ATO Home page.

· Industry Profiling - The ATO will be jointly undertaking, with the professional associations, various market research projects over the next 6 -12 months to cover a variety of areas, including:

- understanding what the drivers of tax agent workloads are;

- tracking tax agent perceptions of the ATO service on a quarterly basis, with

- a particular emphasis on tax practitioner dedicated call centre operations;

- understanding of the technology and computer capability in tax agent practices; and

- effectiveness of ATO communication products developed for the industry.