Shelley Banton, head of education for ASF Audits, said in the latest SMSF State of Play webinar that the ATO has released a new warning to trustees to be on alert for scams and schemes that promote this illegal early access.
“These schemes come with other types of risks, such as identity theft, so It not only allows the criminals to steal your super, but it also allows them to steal from your bank accounts, credit cards, and spend your money online,” Banton said.
“Unfortunately, where SMSF trustees rely on these scammers to illegally access their super, it’s the trustees who are going to be disqualified. They’ll pay any additional tax penalties and interest as a result of their involvement and when a trustee does become disqualified, they can never act as a trustee of an SMSF again.”
Banton said the disqualification by the ATO can also follow a trustee into their personal and professional life as the details of the disqualification will come up in a background check as it’s permanently on the public record.
“The ATO has disqualified 374 trustees as of December 2024 and that’s on track to equal the 753 that they disqualified in 2023, and the reason for that, of course, is due to the number of illegal early access schemes that the ATO is seeing,” she said.
As well as illegal early access, Banton said the ATO has identified that within the SMSF sector, funds have entered into more than $200 million of prohibited loans each year, of which only 75 per cent get paid back.
“It’s important to be aware that the ATO is onto this behaviour and how it’s getting booked into fund financials because there is going to be repercussions where it’s found not to be legitimate,” she said.
The regulator also highlighted the continuing trend of SMSF trustees reporting losses in crypto due to scams, theft, collapse of crypto trading platforms and lost passwords.
“The other thing that’s happening in this space is that criminals, which includes scammers, are pretending to be from the ATO, and are telling trustees that they’re involved in crypto tax evasion, and the only way to help the situation is to connect their wallet and provide their personal details and private keys over the phone,” Banton said.
“Crypto assets aren’t financial products so there’s no regulation and no protection when it and if it all goes to custard and there is no doubt we’re going to keep seeing the ATO putting out reminders on this particular topic.”
Another area of interest in which the ATO is sharpening its focus, she said, is rental property expenses which impacts all SMSFs with properties.
“Trustees need to ensure they are disclosing all rental income and claiming their rental deductions correctly. The ATO has identified that nine out of 10 rental property owners are getting their returns wrong so trustees must be very clear about the difference between rental property repairs, maintenance and capital expenditure,” Banton said.
“Don’t forget that if the fund has repairs, you might need to ask a few questions about whether it’s on the revenue or the capital account. A quick rule of thumb is if you’re replacing something that’s worn out, that’s damaged or requires repair as a result of renting that property out, that’s maintenance and repair and that can be claimed.”
