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Have you appointed an Auditor?
Appoint an SMSF auditor to audit your fund no later than 45 days before you need to lodge your SMSF annual return.
You need to appoint an approved SMSF auditor to audit your fund each year.
They must be appointed no later than 45 days before your SMSF Annual Return (SAR) is due to be lodged.
You must provide all relevant documentation to your auditor so they can perform a financial and compliance audit before you lodge. You’ll need to provide their SMSF Auditor Number (SAN) on your annual return when you lodge.
An audit is required even if the fund will pay no tax or is in pension mode. This includes funds that have had no contributions, income or payments made in the financial year.
Your auditor must be independent and registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Your auditor will advise you of any contraventions of the rules. You as trustee, are responsible for rectifying any contraventions as soon as possible. If you are unable to rectify a contravention you should lodge a voluntary disclosure.
Benefits of using ATO’s Voluntary Disclosure Service
It is important to use ATO’s Voluntary Disclosure Service to inform us early if a contravention has occurred.
Managing a Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF) requires you to meet certain obligations which if overlooked, can result in penalties. That’s why it’s important to let ATO know as soon as possible of any issues or mistakes that may have occurred.
Each year an approved auditor must audit your fund and they are required to inform ATO about any contraventions that may have taken place. However, what happens if a contravention occurs, and you don’t see your auditor for another 8 months?
This is where using ATO’s SMSF early engagement and voluntary disclosure service can help. You can use this service at any time to let ATO know about a contravention that may have occurred, rather than waiting for your auditor to notify ATO after the financial year has ended.
Before using this service, you need to develop a plan to rectify the contravention. You can speak to an SMSF professional to help you with this requirement.
To lodge a voluntary disclosure you must:
- Complete and sign the SMSF regulatory contravention disclosure form
- Provide all relevant facts and documentation in relation to the contravention
- Include a plan to rectify the contravention as soon as possible.
Your tax professional can lodge the form on your behalf or simply lodge it yourself using ATO’s Online services for business.
ATO will take your voluntary disclosure into account when determining what actions ATO will take regarding any contraventions reported by your approved auditor.
Financial advice – Request for Member Input!
To gather valuable insights from Accountants, the FAAA is planning to organise some focus groups to gather valuable feedback and perspectives on:
- Promoting the financial advice profession to consumers,
- Promoting the financial advice profession to prospective students, and
- Promoting the value of the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation to accountants who may be looking for high quality financial advice referral partners for their clients.
Ideally, the FAAA is looking for accountants who are holders of a designation, who are not part of an integrated planning and wealth firm, and are based in or close to the Sydney CBD (as they would ideally like these sessions to be face-to-face).
If you are interested in participating in these focus groups kindly send an email to ipaadvocacy@publicaccountants.org.au, authorising the IPA to share your contact details with the FAAA.
ASIC Financial Advice Update
ASIC has published a consolidated summary of recent regulatory developments and issues affecting financial advice.
The topics of the update include:
- Maintaining accurate records on the financial advisers register;
- Assessing adviser qualifications;
- ASIC’s review of cold calling for superannuation switching business models;
- Cyber security – third-party exposure;
- Financial adviser registration;
- Report 779 Superannuation and choice products: What focus is there on performance?;
- Provisional relevant providers and Keeping up to date with financial advice news.
Source: Australian Taxation Office
