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ATO reiterates ‘underlying problems’ in SMSFs
The ATO still has concerns about some of the “underlying problems” and contraventions that continue to occur in the SMSF sector, according to the ATO’s acting assistant commissioner for SMSFs.
Speaking to SMSF Adviser, the ATO’s Michael Zeitlhofer said that “key contraventions” involve SMSF loans, in-house assets and the separation of assets.
“We continue to get a high percentage of contraventions in those areas and our advice [is to] continue having auditors … work with the trustees to identify those areas and highlight to the trustee where they’ve got these sorts of problems and continue to report them through to us,” he said.
“That then enables us to work with the auditors to get to those contraventions… [so they are] rectified appropriately.”
Mr Zeitlhofer added that the ATO is continuing to target the education of trustees, noting that under the new penalty powers, the ATO can compel trustees to undergo further education.
“We’re keen to support industry by following up with trustees where they’re not doing the right thing and so we’re hoping that those sort of problems start to become less and less over time,” he said.
Speaking at the Institute of Chartered Accountants' 2014 Business Forum recently, assistant commissioner for SMSFs Matthew Bambrick also said a continuing area of focus for the ATO is non-lodgement of SMSFs, despite the on-time lodgement figure increasing from 70 per cent to 80 per cent.
“We finally got it up that high, but that’s still not very good because that’s 20 per cent who aren’t lodging on time. So we’ve had a bit of a focus on that and [the] new penalty regime applies to non-lodgement as well - five penalty units. That’s not insignificant,” he said.
The Commissioner said how bad the late lodgements are, but how many auditor contraventions are there? What percentage of all returns lodged. Is it really as significant a problem as they make out?0- @ Campbell, based on what happened when our clients found out we got a 4 week extension on lodging BAS statements,if you gave SMSF an extension all that would happen is the client would drop off the paperwork 2 weeks later.
It is not as if they have 10 days to get their SMSF stuff together, they already have 10 months. Most of my recalcitrant funds are the simpler ones. How hard is it to get together a dozen bank statements and a share summary from Comsec, yet it takes some Trustees 2 letters, a phone call and threats of fines to get their act together?
I think Liam's suggestion would work better - a fine of $850.00 or the tax jumps to 30% whichever is the greater.0 - Why don't they just announce that those SMSFs who do not lodge on time will be taxed at 30% or highest marginal tax rate. Surely that would improve the reporting0
- I wonder how many late SMSF lodgements occur within a few weeks of the final lodgement date. If a client returns all their signed paperwork on 10 May the individual, company, etc tax returns can be lodged that day, but SMSFs need all the signed minutes scanned, the file sent to teh auditor, wiat for the audit to be finalised and audit report to be provided, etc and the return is lodged late. It would be helpful, and recognise the reality of the process if SMSF tax returns had a lodgement date 2 weeks later than the generic 15 May date, and also got automatic extensions of 3 weeks. A simple measure like that, which is also recognising the practical realities, may well increase ontie lodgement significantly higher.0
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