While the ATO is still in the process of investigating the tax agents who prepared the 2018 SMSF annual return (SAR) for these 832 funds to determine whether the misuse was deliberate or inadvertent, so far it has found that 358 of these funds received no audit.

A further 180 funds connected to 74 tax agents have not yet responded to the mailout, and a reminder letter has recently been issued. Thirty-three funds required additional time to respond.

There were also 31 funds that lodged amended returns indicating that the fund was audited after the original SAR was lodged, and 62 funds that lodged an amended SAR which showed the fund received an audit prior to lodgement of the return, but the incorrect auditor details had been included on the original SAR.

A further 126 funds have lodged amendments requiring further investigation.

The remaining 42 funds actually had the correct auditor details on the SAR as the tax agent provided copies of the independent auditor’s report, and these auditors confirmed they were in fact the auditor of the fund and they had made an error when reporting SAN misuse.

The ATO advised auditors to exercise caution when checking their client lists for the SAN misuse mailout for the 2019 SAR.