The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) of Australia requires that registered agents complete 120 hours of Continuing Professional Education every 3 years, with annual minimum requirements set at 20 hours. This framework commenced on 1 July 2022.
This CPE system has been structured specifically to meet the needs set out by the TPB. It further extends to support a complete Professional Development programme with extended topics, ability to include Professional Development Planning (PDP's) and find related learning activities.
Note that this system is designed to suit tax practitioners who offer standard services. If you offer 'conditional' services, then new systems are coming soon that will suit your individual needs. When they come available you'll be able to change over at any time.
A summary of needs is set out by the TPB. The following is a lightly edited abstract from the TPB website:
Types of activities that count for CPE
The CPE activities you undertake must be relevant to the tax agent services you provide. However, these CPE activities need not be limited to only those areas that help improve your technical knowledge. Other areas such as practice management and ethics are also relevant and important to ensure you provide a competent service to your clients.
Your CPE activities can also include up to 10% of educative health and wellbeing activities over your CPE period. These activities could include attending webinars about how to manage stress and self-care.
We do not accredit CPE activities or prescribe particular topics for CPE activities. For types of CPE activities we consider appropriate refer to CPE activities.
Our CPE policy requires that no more than 25% of CPE should be undertaken through relevant technical/professional reading. Due to the COVID situation improving in most parts of Australia we have reinstated this 25% cap from 1 January 2023. You must also maintain a log book detailing the activities undertaken.
Special circumstances that affect your CPE
There may be extenuating circumstances where you are unable to complete the minimum hours of CPE. If you experience such circumstances, you should exercise your professional judgment in this regard and keep appropriate records in relation to your situation.
Examples of situations where it might not be possible for you to complete the minimum amount of CPE hours include:
- illness
- disability
- family and/or caring responsibilities (such as maternity or paternity leave)
- financial or other hardship.
In these types of circumstances, we will consider appropriate relief from the minimum amount of CPE hours, provided you can demonstrate that you have attempted to use the flexibility of your CPE period to manage any extenuating circumstances to comply with our CPE requirements. This includes a situation where you have transitioned to working part-time due to extenuating circumstances.