Registration is national. The TPB says the Tax Agent Services Act 2009 carries civil penalties for providing tax agent services for a fee or reward, advertising them, or representing yourself as a registered tax agent while unregistered, and the same applies to BAS services. The visible sign of registration is the TPB's registered tax practitioner symbol: registered agents who accept its terms of use can use it in advertising, it must appear with the agent's registration number and type, and anyone can check that number on the TPB Register.
Membership of CPA Australia, Chartered Accountants ANZ or the Institute of Public Accountants is a separate matter from TPB registration, and it's worth showing too. We use the designation wording and logo files your professional body supplies, along with any software partner badge such as Xero or MYOB, rather than redrawing them, and we leave anything uncertain for you to confirm with the organisation concerned.
Victoria adds its own layer through the State Revenue Office. Under the state's COVID Debt Repayment Plan, land tax changed from the 2024 land tax year: flat charges now apply to smaller landholdings that used to sit under the general threshold, and the changes are legislated to run until 30 June 2033. That means owners of a single investment property who never had a land tax bill can now receive an assessment. The payroll tax-free threshold, meanwhile, went up in 2024-25 and again from 1 July 2025. If you help clients with either, a page that names land tax and payroll tax in plain words gives people with those questions somewhere to start. We'd leave the figures themselves to the SRO's site, because they change.
Metropolitan Melbourne spans 31 councils, so a search for an accountant in "Melbourne" is a broad one. A practice in Glen Waverley sits in the City of Monash and one in Werribee in the City of Wyndham, and each does better naming its own suburb and the neighbouring ones its clients come from than claiming the whole city. Say clearly, too, whether you work with clients right across Victoria by phone and video.
We're based on Hutt St in Adelaide and work with Victorian practices by phone and email. Our Melbourne client is a professional services business with booking linked from every page, and we've built a website for an accounting firm whose review appears below.