Howarth continues push to expand advice remit for accountants

The expansion of accountants’ ability to provide advice has been a contentious topic among financial advisers, with some seeing any exemption to full licensing as reducing standards and others believing it could help fill the advice gap.

Shadow financial services minister Luke Howarth falls squarely in the latter camp, reiterating his call to open up restrictions on accountants at Momentum Media’s Election 2025 event last week.

The demand for advice, Howarth said, will “only be increasing”, which necessitates an expanding pool of advisers to match it.

As announced last Thursday, the Coalition has put a numeric target on this goal – aiming to boost the profession’s numbers to 30,000.

Howarth called this a “north star” for future advice reform, though he conceded that a time frame on reaching the number has not been set.

“Setting the target acknowledges the collapse in adviser numbers due to excessive regulation and red tape,” Howarth said.

“We know that ultimately, fewer advisers means advice is becoming less affordable and accessible for Australians who need it most.”

Forming part of this goal to expand access to advice is “making it easier for accountants to provide advice”, particularly when it comes to setting up self-managed superannuation funds.

“The current limited licensing model does not work. It isn’t being used and we need something better,” Howarth said.

He added: “I’m just saying that accountants are good people in relation to self-managed super funds in particular, they should be able to give advice on setting them up. They should be able to give advice on closing them down.”

Appearing on The ifa Show in December, Howarth had supported calls for accountants to be able to provide some form of advice, telling financial advisers they “shouldn’t fear accountants”.

“At the end of the day, I respect accountants significantly,” he said at the time.

“My experience with accountants is they’ve provided good advice. They’re often people that you go to if you want to look at setting up a self-managed super fund and they’re qualified people that know tax law inside out.

“So, giving a little bit of advice, I don’t fear that at all from accountants and I think it probably should be looked at.”

A range of professional associations, including Chartered Accountants ANZ, the Institute of Financial Professionals Australia, and the SMSF Association, had used their pre-budget submissions to highlight the topic.

As CA ANZ put it, an ageing population means it is “critical that individuals can navigate their retirement puzzle easily and simply”.

“Expert financial advice is necessary for all Australians to work through the superannuation, taxation, age pension and aged care regulatory maze. To enable this, legal complexities and inconsistencies need to be removed,” its submission said.

“Australia needs more financial advisers, and this is unlikely to change quickly enough even allowing for the government’s Delivering Better Financial Outcomes announcements.”

ATO portal access

The prospective minister also said he would open up access to the ATO portal for advisers, again arguing the benefits around SMSFs.

“In relation to the ATO portal as well, this would be helpful around self-managed super funds in particular. But access to the portal will ensure advisers access to accurate and up to date read-only information about their clients’ tax affairs to help them provide financial advice.

“It’s something that we’re committed to and we need to get the department moving quickly on that.”

Appearing on The ifa Show last month, the Financial Advice Association Australia’s Phil Anderson said advisers have “been waiting for so long” to get access to the portal, while the association also included it near the top of its list of priorities for the next minister.

“Our future government needs to take substantive steps to fix the crisis in our profession,” chief executive Sarah Abood said.

“Our key asks are designed to help reduce the cost of providing professional advice and also encourage more people to enter the advice profession – both critical requirements for a healthy and sustainable financial advice community.”