Practitioners who are looking to access the concession will need to contact the regulator and continue to meet other obligations around professional indemnity insurance, fit and proper requirements and personal tax obligations.

The annual declaration concession that waives the requirement for practitioners to complete their annual obligation will also run to 31 December 2020.

Likewise, the TPB will also extend the relevant experience concession to 30 June 2021.

This will allow practitioners who are falling short of relevant experience due to the impact of COVID-19 on their working hours to continue maintaining their registration.

The regulator will also extend the relaxation of its continuing professional education (CPE) policy, removing the 25 per cent cap for relevant technical and professional reading activity until 31 December 2020.

Educative health and wellbeing activities, such as webinars about how to manage stress and self-care, will also be accepted as relevant CPE activity for the rest of the calendar year.

TPB chair Ian Klug said the extensions reflected the board’s commitment to supporting practitioners amid the uncertainty of the pandemic.

“Given the COVID-19-related challenges during the year, we have been swift to relax regulatory requirements, including annual declarations, registrations and CPE requirements,” Mr Klug said.

“While some are experiencing increased demand for their services, others may have less work and, therefore, less relevant experience, and may need to access both self-care resources by the way of the CPE concession, and possibly fee deferrals.

“These extensions to the original concessions announced by the TPB in March are intended to provide tax practitioners with additional reassurance that their health and wellbeing is our number one priority.

“We encourage tax practitioners to contact the TPB if they are encountering difficulties in meeting their TPB obligations so that we can consider their individual circumstances and work with them to find an appropriate outcome.”