The ATO has issued a number of reminders for SMSF trustees around record-keeping and the lodging of annual returns highlighting the obligations related to these tasks.
In the first of three updates released on its website, the regulator called on trustees to notify the ATO when they have made changes to critical information related to their SMSF.
“As a trustee, part of your obligations in maintaining an SMSF are that you must notify us if you make any changes to your SMSF. These changes could include contact details, ([such as] contact person, phone or email address), change of structure within your SMSF, fund status, and bank account details,” the regulator said.
“Regardless of how big or small the changes are, it’s important to notify us of any changes to your SMSF within 28 days.”
The ATO warned a failure to inform it of any change to contact details may result in trustees missing out on important correspondence from the regulator.
In keeping with this initiative, trustees have been asked to check their SMSF records in the lead-up to the end of the financial year given they bear the ultimate responsibility for maintaining this documentation even if a superannuation or taxation professional was being employed to administer the fund.
“There are many benefits to maintaining good record keeping habits for your self-managed super fund. It’s also a legal requirement,” the ATO stated.
“The benefits of good recording keeping include making it easier for you to provide information to your SMSF professionals for independent audit and annual return preparation, helping to reduce audit and administration costs and avoiding the risk of receiving administrative penalties which are personally payable by each individual trustee or the corporate trustee of the fund.”
Further the sector watch dog highlighted some funds are required to lodge their SMSF annual return (SAR) by 15 May and should act quickly if the deadline happens to be missed.
“When your SAR is more than two weeks overdue, and you haven’t contacted us, we may change your compliance status of the SMSF on Super Fund Lookup to ‘regulation details removed’. This status will remain until any overdue lodgements are brought up to date,” the regulator warned.
“If you have a status of ‘regulation details removed’, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority funds will not be able to roll over member benefits and employers are recommended to not make any super guarantee payments to the fund’s members.”
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