We wish to advise that our company, Etax Accountants Pty Ltd, was incorporated in August 1998. Our company is a registered tax agent.
We registered the domain name www.etax.com.au in Australia in August 1998 and have offered an online tax service to our clients since 1999. We hold copyright in our Etax logo. Etax is a generic word used internationally to describe electronic tax. We have an extensive online tax base of clients who pay a fee for our services throughout the year.
The ATO also chose to name their tax service E-TAX (E hyphen Tax) and have a different logo. Our service is conducted entirely on the web and quite different to the ATO service in many ways. There is no downloading of software required from our web site, unlike the ATO site. We provide online questions and answers and offer financial advice extending beyond the lodgement of a tax return.
The ATO were fully aware that we intended to trade under our logo Etax and held the domain name before we commenced trading. The matter of confusion has never been raised by the ATO with us or by us with them.
We would be pleased if the ATO chose another name for their service. However we have found very few people confuse our site www.etax.com.au with the ATO site www.ato.gov.au. The sites are clearly marked to avoid any confusion.