Speaking to SMSF Adviser, Mr Cooper, the chairman of retirement income at Challenger, said SMSFs “first and foremost” are a tax vehicle.
“The philosophy is that you take responsibility for building up your retirement savings and you take that responsibility yourself,” Mr Cooper said.
“They’re primarily tax rules that you’ve got to comply with in order to have that privilege, and it’s really the tax office that ought to administer that.”
Mr Cooper also dismissed suggestions stemming from several FSI submissions that APRA would be a more appropriate regulator of SMSFs than the ATO.
“To think that going back to APRA is somehow a solution is just not sensible,” Mr Cooper said. “I strongly disagree with that.”
Mr Cooper added the ATO is doing a “better and better” job as the sector grows.
“They understand the SMSF sector, they understand… where the problems are and I’m really impressed with the job that they’re doing,” Mr Cooper said.
“The number of SMSF applications that they actually reject and the number of SMSFs that they’re closing down is actually quite dramatic.
“So these submissions that say it’s all terrible and SMSFs need to be cracked down on, there’s an ulterior motive in a lot of it.”
I agree but ATO should show restraint in constantly increasing its charges. For simple (ie ordinary shares & cash funds totally in retirement mode) it should provide a very cheap/free E tax like alternative.
Mr Cooper obviously hasnt read the Inspector General of Taxation damming report on complaints – mainly ECT(http://www.igt.gov.au/content/… )
If this was my yearly employment apraisal i’d resign pronto, before i got fired.
ECT on retirees who make mistakes has been unfair and hurtful to everyone -and that was against the advice of treasury. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
The ATO should stick to IT and relinquish super.
Compliance costs are sky high and super needs a good spring clean.
I agree that the ATO is better equipted to supervise the SMSF rather than the APRA
The ATO is by far the most efficient government organisation and it makes sense that it should monitor SMSFs.
ASIC charges a fee for lodging annual returns and it is well behind the ATO in efficiency.
The most concerning thing about the ATO and how it regulates the SMSF sector is the charge it levies each and every fund for this function. No other sector has a fee applied for the lodgement and mangement of an income tax return.