Aaron Dunn, chief executive of Smarter SMSF, said in the latest SMSF Adviser podcast that the proposal from the SMSF Association to create a third-party role that would allow advisers to access client data in a read-only mode would be a “positive move”.
In its submission to the review of tax regulator secrecy exceptions consultation paper, the SMSFA indicated this role should be separate and distinct so as not to interfere with the primary tax agent relationship.
“Given the nature of the information to be provided, access should only be permitted where the role is authorised by the individual taxpayer,” it said.
“Access should be limited to accessing information only. All other rights, such as the changing of a taxpayer’s personal details or the lodgement of individual returns or forms would remain the role of the primary tax agent.”
Dunn said this restriction to access vital information for SMSF clients has been a source of frustration since the introduction of the transfer balance cap.
“This is all around total superannuation balance, essentially what is the value of the individual’s interest at the previous financial year so that advisers can determine in providing advice whether they can make a non-concessional contribution and to what extent,” he said.
“You don’t want to be telling clients the wrong amount and then having a penalty, so this is linked to the adviser space and has been a bugbear for some time.”
He continued that equally for administrators, if they are also the tax agent, the fund’s information only goes so far.
“Therefore, if they don’t do the tax work of the individual, then they’re not going to know that information in respect to the total superannuation, even though potentially they were the ones that reported that to the Tax Office in the first place,” Dunn said.
“They also need to capture any other superannuation and various amounts that the client may have and provide some ability to access that would, in essence, be this proposed third party. That designated role would effectively open up those two parts of the profession.”
Dunn said without access to information about TBS, the process becomes more convoluted and adds costs, especially if advisers have to find that information through external means, either via the client having to get it or having to go back via the tax agent, who is the appointed agent for those individuals.
He said trusting clients to look at the right number on myGov is not the most efficient way to overcome the problem, and the issue centres around privacy permissions.
“A lot of those challenges are really what the ATO has argued historically, but if you have the ability to provide that authority to the relevant parties in a particular designated role, and they may hold certain positions, like an administrator role, then potentially there’s an opportunity there to make some of this information more readily available for people to be able to do the work that they’re trying to get done.”
