ATO casts doubt on SMSF figures
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) assistant commissioner for superannuation, Stuart Forsyth, has cast doubt on reports that there are 478,000 self-managed super funds (SMSFs) operating in the industry.
He said included in the numbers were many funds that did not exist or did not operate properly.
Speaking at the Institute of Chartered Accountants' SMSF conference, Forsyth said it was unfair that compliant SMSFs had to fork out cash on the SMSF levy - a percentage of which was spent trying to catch fraudsters.
"The more of those we can weed out more cheaply at the start, in the end the less the levy has to fund in terms of chasing those people up," he said.
Forsyth said getting rid of non-compliant SMSFs was a priority, and the ATO had implemented risk assessments for new trustees.
Forsyth said an open registration system had created problems that needed to be addressed at the root.
"We had situations where we closed down a fund on a Monday and those people started a new fund on the Tuesday, do a rollover request on Wednesday and have their money by Thursday. Once they've got the money, it's very difficult," he said.
The ATO has implemented risk assessments for all new trustees. Forsyth said if a trustee had been thoroughly assessed by the ATO and was then found to be deliberately misleading, they would face the 45 per cent tax rate plus a significant penalty.
He said only 74.2 per cent of trustees lodged audit reports on time last year, and believed a percentage of the non-lodgers did not intend to run an SMSF.
It took five years to complete 97 per cent of lodgements, Forsyth said, which meant 3 per cent of SMSF trustees never lodged.
But Forsyth said auditor numbers had dropped by approximately 1,000 each year for two years, which he saw as a sign of increasing specialisation and professionalism within the industry.
He said although the industry faced a number of trustee issues, more than 85 per cent of SMSF trustees were trying to do the right thing.
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