ATO expected to adopt ‘educative approach’ with SuperStream breaches
The industry is hopeful the ATO will take an educative approach towards SuperStream compliance issues from the 2021–22 year, with the Tax Office likely to be bombarded with breaches.
Speaking at a recent event in Sydney, ASF Audits head of education Shelley Banton said while it’s not clear at this stage exactly how the ATO will respond to breaches of the SuperStream standards, the ATO may look to take an educative approach given their understanding of all this issues currently out there with the system.
Ms Banton said SMSF auditors don’t have any discretion where a fund has failed the SuperStream payment standards and will be forced to lodge an auditor contravention report where there is a breach of r6.17 SISR.
“Let’s be honest, the ATO is going to be bombarded with these [contraventions] and there’s not a lot we can do about that,” said Ms Banton at the SMSF Adviser Technical Strategy Day.
“Everyone is still trying to find their own way — including the ATO — and trying to work out exactly where the mischief is. Obviously SuperStream has been put in place to minimise and reduce that mischief down to zero in terms of having everything electronically validated.”
Ms Banton said while the ATO certainly has its own ideas of how that’s going to play out, it is aware of all the teething problems that have been happening.
“I don’t think in this first year that [the ATO] would be looking to penalise trustees as a result of what’s happened,” she said.
In terms of what auditors will be looking to see at audit, Ms Banton said, auditors will want to see that the money has come out of the bank account in time, the completion notice that has come from the software that provides a lot of information, and potentially a minute that will state from the trustee’s point of view that they’ve complied with the SuperStream requirements.
Ms Banton noted that the ATO, SMSF Association, and APRA-regulated super funds have all been working together to rectify some of the issues and make the system work as efficiently as possible.
In a recent CFS FirstTech podcast, SMSF Association deputy chief executive Peter Burgess said the SMSF association was working with both the ATO and the APRA-funds to improve the flow of information where errors occur on SuperStream.
One of the key issues being encountered by SMSFs, explained Mr Burgess, is that where a message has been sent to an APRA fund and it has failed or been rejected, there’s very limited information provided as to why that message has actually failed.
“We are working with the APRA funds and the ATO to try and resolve that so that we get more information back when a message actually fails, so we know what to do to fix it.”
Miranda Brownlee
Miranda Brownlee is the deputy editor of SMSF Adviser, which is the leading source of news, strategy and educational content for professionals working in the SMSF sector.
Since joining the team in 2014, Miranda has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest superannuation stories in Australia, and has reported extensively on technical strategy and legislative updates.
Miranda also has broad business and financial services reporting experience, having written for titles including Investor Daily, ifa and Accountants Daily.
