The Tax Office has also tweaked its strategy in a bid to capture more instances of SAN abuse.

“This year, for the first time, instead of SMSF auditors receiving a list containing only funds they audited for the 2020 financial year, the list will also contain audits for other financial years where the audit date has been reported during the period 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021,” the ATO said.

“The lists will require SMSF auditors to confirm whether they conducted the audit. Where we have received an auditor contravention report (ACR) and/or an audit complete advice (ACA) for the corresponding financial year, we will remove these funds from the list.

“This change in strategy will improve our detection of SAN misuse.”

The ATO said SMSF auditors are therefore encouraged to check their lists carefully and report to them whether their SAN has been misreported. Additional information such as incorrect audit dates or funds that have been audited that do not appear on the list can be provided in the response.

“Even where the lists reveal no misreporting, auditors should still confirm this with us so we can be reassured that the funds in the list received an audit,” the ATO added. 

This comes as the ATO had recently concluded its most successful mailout to approved SMSF auditors.

The responses have allowed the ATO to identify tax professionals who have submitted SARs possibly quoting incorrect SMSF auditor numbers and will need to review SMSF auditor numbers reported.

The deliberate misuse of SMSF auditor numbers had been identified as an ongoing area of concern with the ATO and the TPB, with 74 tax practitioners singled out last year over such misuse.