Lobbying

Institute lobbying helps protect members' interests and enhance public policy, both in Australia and internationally. This year the Institute documented its public policy position and highlighted its areas of focus: taxation, superannuation, sustainability, corporate governance and ethics, regulatory reform, and workforce issues.

The Institute's lobbying achieved a number of significant results this year:

• Major wins for small businesses, including changes to Division 7A (of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936), the alignment of eligibility criteria for small business concessions, amendments to the small business capital gains tax concession, family trust elections, and capital gains for testamentary trusts
• Major wins for large businesses, including the repeal of the dividend tainting rules, share capital tainting changes, removal of the income ceiling on the same business test and capital gains tax amendments for non-residents
• Extensive input into the Better Superannuation legislation
• Extensive input into the Government's Rethinking Regulation report, and the subsequent Simpler Regulatory System Act, including substantial increases in revenue and asset thresholds for the financial reporting of large proprietary companies.

Leadership

The Institute has delivered a number of leadership initiatives throughout the year. One notable success was in the area of differential auditing (or different assurance alternatives). The Institute commissioned a paper by Professor Ken Trotman of the Centre for Accounting and Assurance Services Research at the University of New South Wales.

The paper addressed the problems practitioners face in using 'one size fits all' standards for businesses of varying size and complexity. This was then debated in a stakeholder forum, which formed the basis of a white paper. The paper was then central to a panel session held at the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board meeting in Sydney.

This initiative was considered a major success, as it addressed an issue of concern for members, employed an academic with proven credentials and generated wider debate.

Meanwhile, the Institute has been leading debate in a number of other areas, publishing reports on topics such as financial planning, broad-based business reporting and the use of judgment in auditing. Also released was a white paper summarising key observations from a forum on ethics, held by the Institute in 2006.

Meeting and enforcing standards

The Institute completed 478 quality reviews of different sized practices this year, helping maintain standards by assessing members’ work and offering guidance where necessary. Alongside this, the professional conduct function enforced standards by investigating 317 formal complaints (a tiny fraction of the tasks performed by more than 46,000 members), investigating other issues (such as court judgments and public inquiries), and initiating 11 disciplinary cases, resulting in sanctions (where appropriate). The Institute has published separate reports, outlining its performance in these areas:

• Professional conduct annual report (PDF: 420KB)
• Quality review annual report (PDF: 425KB)

Brand

This year the Institute's brand campaign focused on students, with the aim of attracting high quality candidates into the profession. Research afterwards indicated that 'top of mind' brand awareness in the student market was strong. And more than 60 per cent of students stated the campaign made them more interested in becoming a Chartered Accountant.