Balancing Dual Roles: Challenges for Tax Practitioners - 6AG534

This essay critically discusses the challenges tax practitioners face in balancing their dual roles as tax advocates for individuals and upholders of tax law. It begins by defining tax practitioners and their responsibilities, highlighting the potential conflicts between advocating for clients and adhering to legal obligations. The essay explores the ethical dilemmas practitioners encounter, particularly in Australia, where their roles are broad and varied. It examines how market structures, client needs, and the desire to comply with both client instructions and legal standards can create tension. Ultimately, the essay suggests that categorizing practitioners by experience and sector can help mitigate these challenges, allowing them to focus on either individual client needs or upholding tax laws, thereby reducing moral and ethical conflicts. Desklib provides a platform for students to access this and other solved assignments.

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ASSIGNMENT

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Critically discuss the challenges tax practitioners face in balancing these dual
roles of being the tax advocate for individuals and tax law upholder.
Introduction
The tax practitioner in any part of the country are the people who deal in taxes, the tax
laws, their application and their settlements. Usually when we see the tax practioner
who automatically draw a conclusion that the said person deals in taxes, but the fact is
often neglected that sphere of taxes that they must work in. Here in the discussion
which follows one has tried to categorize the work that is done by the tax payers, and
how two major roles that they play, one for being the tax advocates of the people, or
individuals in general and that one being the tax law upholder is balanced or need
balancing or that they might or might not contradict one another. It is for the same
purpose that one has discussed who exactly is a tax payer, what could be his roles and
responsibility and how they can be facing challenges which they try to balance these
two major roles which has been mentioned above.
Like the name of the profession suggests, tax practitioner are people who deal and
work with taxes. When one talks about taxes one should have a very clear idea that
practicing tax includes lot of work, which could be for individual, or government,

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companies or units. They have dual roles to play which might contradict each other,
and therefore it becomes important to analyze their roles as whole (Tran-Nam, 2016).
One understands that tax practitioner are people who investigate the work which is
related to taxes in the country. They assist the people to pay taxes which means they
make people comply with the obligations set out by the laws regarding the taxes, thus
playing the individual tax advocate. One has noticed that over the period the number
of tax Practitioners in the country has increased, which means that more individual
now would like to seek advice from the tax practitioner and need their assistance for
fulfilling their respective obligations.
Managing dual roles
The discussion about the main functions of the tax practioner is not exactly
exhaustive. If one was to categorize the same one would say that the that the main
services which are to be provided by the tax practitioners includes the education of
their clients about the methods and preparations which are required so that their tax
returns can be filed and that the tax related documents can be maintained, they have to
assist their clients, whosoever it should be in providing for any kind of advice
specially the ones which are involved in some or the other kind of risk and lastly they
should have the capacity to represent their clients in case there is any kind of a dispute
related to the tax.
Like mentioned the main problem that they face is balancing the dual role, and when
research and observance is conducted in the same, the roles can be defined by the
markets that the practice in which has been later discussed as well, and this division of
their services also helps them in categorization their roles, which is an indication as
well that they should adhere to only one side. The categories which seek advice could

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range from the high-income tax payers to tax absconders, to other professional, and
this would further differ from market to market and sub-market, because then they
would also include the small service providers along with the big ones and the
services that they require from the provisional individual is way different (Shafer,
2011).
The structure of the market, it being a monopoly, oligopoly or others also affect the
way the tax Practitioner would carry out their work. This also indicates that the advice
which is provided by the practitioner to the individual or the unit or the company is
not always true to the legislation which have been formed over the period, and that is
that was the case the black market would not have been running so something.
The individuals tend to depend so heavily on the advice of the tax payers because the
application of laws and the tax related legislation correctly would help the individuals
to file accurate returns and help them in maintaining their files related to taxes in the
right manner. The tax practitioner are people who include people to comply with the
tax related legislation and thus can also be said that they are people upholding the
laws which are related to tax. Therefore, on hand one can say that there are situations
which lets them play both the roles at the same time and then there are the ones which
makes it difficult for them to balance the two.
Tax practitioner are people who have who work along the lines of the tax related
legislation and as not people who can be called accountants. They have answers to all
the tax questions, and in Australia they require special licensing and requirements,
like passing certain exams and practicing under a senior and so on. Like mentioned
the responsibilities and the roles of a tax payer would differ depending upon the sector
in which they are practicing and on the unit in which they are working. When working

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for the individuals their main function after they get the required certificate and the
recognition is that they provide advice to the individuals, regarding payment of their
taxes keeping in mind the background of the individuals, the work that they do and
also file the returns and reports based on the same, but many a times when a tax
practitioner works as a public accountant, he mainly works from the side of the
government, where he truly can be claimed to be the upholder of the tax laws, because
the government units mostly check the payments of individuals and companies in the
light of law, making the tax practitioner people who uphold the law and work
accordingly (Pickhardt and Prinz, 2014). Either of the work which is done by the tax
payer is done in a manner that they stick to their jurisdiction and the legal framework,
and that is almost the basic reason why the individual clients engage the tax payers,
for the legal accuracy and the apt returns. The practitioner provides for information
and the advice at the given point of time to the individual regarding their taxes and
their returns and they are even Authorized to be representing individual clients (or
others) in case their compliance is under in investigation of the tax authority. It must
be mentioned that the tax authority one is talking about, are a group of tax practitioner
themselves, who have certain additional qualifications and if not, they simply have the
experiences to be working as an authoritativeness power.
The reason why the tax practitioners’ roles with the individual and with the
government units are being mentioned and discussed is so that the differences can be
spotted and at the same time, these differences are what could be looked at as
challenger which the tax practitioners could be facing when trying to balance the
above mentioned (Stuebs and Wilkinson, 2010).
Tax practitioner investigate the working of the taxes from either of the sides and the
role that they play depends on who they are working for. There as instances when the

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tax practitioner who is working for the individual can also be called an upholder of
law because by providing the right kind of advice and by doing that they are helping
the said individuals to comply by the obligations which has been laid down by the
legislation, thus making them the upholder of laws as well.
From the discussion that has been given above, one could state that the tax payers can
play both the roles not only simultaneously but also with ease keeping in mind the
instances where compliance by an Individual would also mean upholding the laws
which have been made in the same context.
Nevertheless, keeping aside such practitioner that tax practitioners can be said to be
facing challenges when they must balance the roles in situations where the same does
not coincide.
There are times when the tax practitioner is hired to be working for an individual, his
taxes and returns and at the same time the client that he has, has certain requirements,
like being able to present the tax books to the government in a certain manner, and
this work can be only done by a tax practitioner. At times like this the tax practitioner
might have to use his skill and knowledge and the experience which he has earned
over the period to listen to his client’s instructions and present the tax book in the
desired manner. At times like these the main concern for the tax practitioner becomes
listening to the client and presenting the book in the required manner than thoroughly
uploading the laws regarding the same. The tax practitioner in this case is the
processional working for the individual and not someone who upholds the law in the
truest sense though by the degree he has, and the legal obligations which has been
conferred by him by his qualifications expect him to be the upholder of the law even
when advising. Thus, the obligation towards the legal authority giving the practitioner

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the degree clashes with the obligation that the practitioner owes to the client then
(Tan, 2016).
The main problem when it comes to balancing such a dual role which has been
mentioned above, is the ethics, because between fulfilling the work for the individual
client and presenting oneself as the upholder for law, there are ethical dilemmas
which the practitioner tends to face. In a country like Australia one tends to find that
the roles of the practitioner are rather expanded which might be one of the reasons
why such people would face more dilemmas than required. These practitioner face
moral and ethical issues as they tend to have moral and professional dilemma towards
the client and at the same time they must evaluate the nature and the extent of the
ethical concerns which exists from the right of the law makers (Hearson, 2014). In
Australia the dilemma or the balancing g problem amongst the practitioner can be
varied, having implications for the administration of the taxes as well as it as a
profession.
It is often seen to prevent such a dilemma to exist, there are authorities (Doyle, 2013)
which have been made which cottager the working of such practitioners, like the body
of the tax practitioner in referral is regarded as one big group, but at the same time
they are participation into broad bodies, one group looking into one sector and the
other into another. It has also been noticed that the Practice which one group
undertook was almost the same as the other, with only a little significant differences
which conveniently gives rise to dilemma amongst the group as well, but one cannot
at the same time deny that such categorization literally help the tax [practitioner to
choose a way of work and not feel any moral guilt if the same is not complied and that
they have chosen a path in the way of their profession and that they should
concentrate on the same (Frecknall-Hughes and Moizer, 2015).

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Conclusion
One needs to understand that the profession of a tax practice is a very well expanded
and divided one. Therefore, the only way to balance of the dual role that a practitioner
would have to play, would be by way of categorization, dividing the bandwagon of
the practioner as per their experience and qualification in their respective sectors so
that the focus of the individual as a practitioner is one thing. Therefore, when such
practitioner is working for the individuals they should concentrate on the
requirements of the individual and why and what he wants to do with his returns and
the and the procedures should be followed to get maximum returns. There is nothing
wrong in concentrating on what the clients required even if the same is not word to
word correct in the legislation which is being referred to in this case (Becker, 2015).
At the same time the practitioners who have been assigned the job of working with
individualizes in government state or have been given the chance to form unions or
besides or authorities who would work to see whether the former category of the and
its rules have been complied with or not, and these set of practitioners generally could
be held as people who are upholding the taxation laws for the country.
Thus, the challenges which would have been there if the practices of the practicing
were not even divided would include:
Playing dual role of a professional for an individual, and the one upholding the rule of
law, simultaneously.
Ethical issues like it has been mentioned and discussed above, which often puts the
practioner in a position where he cannot rightfully choose which side of the role he
should be playing.

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Conflict of interest depending on what kind of a practitioner the tax practitioner is and
what kind of services are to be required from them by clients or units that they are
working for (Fogarty and Jones, 2014).
References
Becker, J., Reimer, E. and Rust, A., 2015. Klaus Vogel on Double Taxation
Conventions. Kluwer Law International.
Doyle, E., Hughes, J.F. and Summers, B., 2013. An empirical analysis of the ethical
reasoning of tax practitioners. Journal of Business Ethics, 114(2), pp.325-339.
Frecknall-Hughes, J. and Moizer, P., 2015. Assessing the quality of services provided
by UK tax practitioners. eJournal of Tax Research, 13(1).
Fogarty, T. and A. Jones, D., 2014. Between a rock and a hard place: How tax
practitioners straddle client advocacy and professional responsibilities. Qualitative
Research in Accounting & Management, 11(4), pp.286-316.

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Hearson, M., 2014. Tax-motivated illicit financial flows: A guide for development
practitioners. U4 Issue.
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