Individual tax review is a different problem.
Company and trust reviews usually start with a body of accounting records that should reconcile.
Individual tax returns often don’t. That changes the question a reviewer needs to ask.
It is no longer only “Does the information agree?” It is also “What should be here, but isn’t?”
Taxpartna Individual Tax Review is being designed from the ground up for that problem.
Company reviews ask what’s wrong.
Individual reviews ask what’s missing.
A company or trust file will often contain several natural checks and balances.
There may be a general ledger, trial balance, financial statements, tax reconciliation, bank reconciliations and supporting workpapers. The same underlying information appears in multiple places, giving the reviewer opportunities to identify when figures do not agree or something does not make sense.
Individual tax files are different.
For many individuals there is no complete general ledger. There may be no balance sheet, no bank reconciliation and no single accounting record that tells the complete story.
Instead, the tax position may need to be assembled from a collection of information such as pre-fill data, tax statements, rental property schedules, investment reports, capital gains workings, deduction schedules, receipts, correspondence and workpapers.
Some information will be duplicated. Some will appear only once. And some of the most important information may simply never have arrived.
That means a strong individual tax review cannot just be a smaller version of a company review.
You can reconcile what you have.
The harder question is whether you have everything.
Traditional reconciliation is powerful when there are multiple sources to compare.
But an individual tax file can be perfectly internally consistent and still be incomplete.
A figure may agree everywhere it appears while an entirely separate source of income, deduction, asset disposal or supporting document is absent from the file.
That creates a different kind of review risk. The reviewer needs to consider not only whether information is correct, but whether the information available is sufficient to support the return and whether the circumstances of the taxpayer suggest that something else should be present.
“The absence of a mismatch does not prove the absence of a problem.”
So we’re not adapting Company Review.
We’re building Individual Review properly.
When we started thinking about Individual Tax Review, we stepped back from the existing product.
The objective was not to take the checks that work for companies and trusts, remove the irrelevant ones and call the result an individual review.
The underlying information is different. The available evidence is different. The risks are different. So the review methodology needs to be different too.
Taxpartna Individual Tax Review is being designed around the questions an experienced reviewer actually needs answered:
What is here?
Understand the information, documents and workpapers available in the completed file.
What doesn’t agree?
Identify inconsistencies between the sources that are available for professional assessment.
What appears to be missing?
Help direct the practitioner’s attention to information or support that may warrant further investigation before sign-off.
That distinction matters.
The goal is not simply more automated checks. It is a review process designed around the reality of individual tax files.
Better QA starts with understanding the problem.
Taxpartna exists to make tax quality assurance more thorough, consistent and efficient.
Individual tax is an important part of that mission, but it deserves its own approach.
We are building Individual Tax Review to help practitioners spend less time manually searching through fragmented information and more time applying their professional judgement to the matters that actually require it.
The product is being designed specifically for Australian accounting firms and Australian tax workflows.
This is not an automated tax agent and it will not replace the registered tax practitioner. Taxpartna assists with the review. The practitioner considers the evidence, resolves outstanding matters and makes the professional decision.
Read more about how we handle firm and client data on our security page, or explore the current Company & Trust Review.
A ledger that has to balance.
Financial records create multiple opportunities to cross-check the story.
Loose documents, and the one that never arrived.
The review needs to consider what is absent as well as what is inconsistent.
In build now.
We’re taking the time to solve the individual review problem properly. Taxpartna Individual Tax Review is coming soon.
In the meantime, Australian accounting firms can join the free beta for our existing Company & Trust Review.
Individual Tax Review FAQs
Is Taxpartna Individual Tax Review available now?
Not yet. Individual Tax Review is currently in development. This page will be updated as we get closer to release.
Why does individual tax need a different review approach?
Companies and trusts often have accounting records such as a general ledger, trial balance, financial statements and reconciliations that provide multiple sources against which information can be checked. Individual tax files are often more fragmented. An effective review therefore needs to consider missing or insufficient information as well as inconsistencies in the information provided.
Will Taxpartna make the final decision on an individual tax return?
No. Taxpartna is a quality-assurance assistance tool. The registered tax practitioner remains responsible for professional judgement, calculations, conclusions and final sign-off.
Can our firm use Taxpartna while Individual Tax Review is being built?
Yes. Firms can join the current free beta for Taxpartna’s Company & Trust Review. Join the Company & Trust Beta.
Taxpartna is a quality assurance assistance tool designed for use by registered tax practitioners. Taxpartna does not provide tax advice, tax agent services, or BAS agent services. All professional judgments and sign-off decisions remain the responsibility of the registered tax practitioner. Taxpartna is not a registered tax agent with the Tax Practitioners Board.