The 30th of November 2019 is being heralded as a landmark day for the SMSF sector, with SMSF rollovers coming under the SuperStream regime for the first time from that date, according to Australia’s largest SMSF administrator, SuperConcepts.
Speaking the SMSF Association national conference in Melbourne, Peter Burgess, SuperConcepts General Manager of Education and Technical Services said: “Most of us here today have experienced the frustration of rolling over funds from APRA funds to an SMSF - it can often take months to occur.
“New regulations passed into law last year will require rollovers to and from an SMSFs to comply with the Superstream standards from 30 November 2019, and this means the rollover must generally occur within 3 business days.
“But in order for the rollover to occur the SMSF must ensure they have provided the ATO with the fund’s bank account details, ABN and Electronic Service Address at least 10 business days before requesting the rollover – a small price to pay you would think to ensure the rollover occurs within 3 business days,” he said.
Mr Burgess said there are a few ways the trustees can advise or update their ESA details, but the most common way is through the ATO’s online tax agent portal or by completing the relevant paper form.
“I also understand the SMSF annual return is being redesigned to make it easier to provide these details when lodging the return,” Mr Burgess said.
“So if you are in the business of establishing SMSFs, it’s a good idea to start embedding this new process now, in other words, start providing this information to the ATO as part of your fund establishment process which makes sense given many SMSFs are established with a rollover anyway”, Mr Burgess said.
“It also means the trustees then don’t need to worry about providing this information to the ATO at a later time if they are ever rolling over funds to their SMSF.
“APRA funds will also need to change their processes because in addition to using the ATO’s electronic member verification service to verify that the client is actually a member of the SMSF, they will also need to use this service to validate the fund’s bank account and Electronic Service Address information.
“The ATO’s electronic member verification service is currently being updated to accommodate this information,” Mr Burgess said.
Media contact:
Garth Montgomery
garth.montgomery@superconcepts.com.au
