Australian council calls for client legal privilege extension
2-May-2008The Australian Law Reform Council issued a report, on 13 February 2008, recommending that client legal privilege be extended to tax advice provided by professional accounting advisors in some specified circumstances.
Under the ALRC's recommendations, legal privilege would specifically be extended to a tax advice document, a "confidential document created by an independent professional accounting advisor for the dominant purpose of providing that person with advice about the operation and effect of tax laws."
The Council said that, "in order to promote compliance, clients ought to be protected fully in their communications in relation to tax law in the same way they are in other areas of the law."
The report, titled "Privilege in Perspective: A Review of Legal Professional Privilege and Federal Investigatory Bodies", addresses the handling of client legal privilege claims over communications between a lawyer and his or her client in the context of the use of coercive disclosure powers by federal government agencies during investigations.
The ALRC made 45 recommendations, including the enactment of a single federal statute to deal with the general aspects of law, simplified procedures, and the resolution of disputes regarding client legal privilege.
Under the ALRC's recommendations, federal client legal privilege would specifically be extended to a tax advice document, a "confidential document created by an independent professional accounting advisor for the dominant purpose of providing that person with advice about the operation and effect of tax laws."
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