BGL chief executive Ron Lesh said the ATO wants every person in Australia with a superannuation pension to report the start of any pension and any changes with that pension.

“This reporting applies if the pension balance is $50,000 or at the $1.6 million pension cap. We think this is big brother gone mad. We think the only pensions that should be reported to the ATO are pensions where a member has a superannuation interest of $1.6 million or greater,” said Lesh.

“Furthermore, we demand the ATO adopt a single date for the reporting of pensions and pension changes. We think this reporting should be 28 days after the end of each quarter.”

Mr Lesh said he was very concerned about how all these changes would affect clients.

“The 2016/17 budget changes have already added a huge amount of work for our clients and a huge amount of cost to their clients – these reporting rules are simply going to make things worse,” he said.

“Furthermore, it would appear the ATO is making up its own rules here. We have scoured the new legislation and regulations and cannot find anywhere where these reporting requirements are outlined.”