Speaking to SMSF Adviser, Licensing for Accountants chief executive Kath Bowler said a typical SMSF accountant would need to comply with obligations for either CPA or Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ), obligations for their tax agent registration and on top of that requirements for their limited AFS or authorisation under a licence.
“If they are also an SMSF Association member, that’s four different requirements and dates,” said Ms Bowler.
The CPD reporting requirements across the accounting bodies and associations, she said, are extremely varied, which adds to the complexity of managing these obligations.
CPA uses a triennium calendar based on the calendar year, CA ANZ and the FPA also use a triennium calendar but based on the financial year, the IPA uses a biennium calendar based on the calendar year and the SMSF Association uses a triennium calendar but based on 1 April.
The reporting calendar for tax agent registration also follows a triennium calendar, but it’s based on the registration date, while AFS licensing obligations have their own annual requirements.
“I would like to put a call out to the associations for more consistent reporting because some are based on the calendar year, some the financial year – others like the SMSF Association are based on a specific date,” added Ms Bowler.
“There is a lot for accountants to manage anyway, let alone these varied reporting dates.”
SMSFAdviser! I thought you moderated before publishing comments?
This has been an unworthy example of public debate.
Can we please stop the accounting/FP arguing (refer previous posts)? Both professions are important to adequately cater to a clients needs. Client needs are best served by working together for the client, lets put their interests first please.
On the issue at hand, I too have an issue with the CPD situation. I now have SMSF Assoc, FPA and TPB to complete every year plus potentially additional specialisations, most of which are redo’s of one’s already completed. The total is over 100 points per annum plus extras. This is overkill in the extreme.
My wife is a GP, she gets points way faster than I can and has to do 160 points per triennium (54 per annum) and can choose whatever subject matter she likes.
My undergrad and masters may, or may not, count me as appropriately qualified under the new regs.
I was explaining to a young gen Y how we can have a greater impact potentially for him than our very wealthy clients in improving their life outcomes but compliance costs drives up our fees too much for them to engage us and get a net positive outcome.
This is making this matter worse and this is before the ASIC funding model is introduced!!
The “issue” with advisers is not the educational level (at least not the biggest issue) with poor advice, the elephant in the room which the insto’s have so far successfully diverted attention from is vertical integration of product and advice.
There are bad apples in every barrel (accounting and FP included) but the vast source of bad advice and bad client outcomes is related to vertical integration. Education of advisers will NOT fix this issue.
We are taking vitamin C to treat a cancer.
The sooner ALL related associations get this through the regulators heads the sooner will move to somewhat a feasible, logical and affordable solution.
A commonsense solution is required.
I am a member of CAANZ, CANNZ SMSF Specilaist, SMSF Association, I hold a tax agents licence & am a authorised representative.
I specialise in SMSF advice/administration.
I have no issues tracking what events I attend. The difficulty is determining what PD events to attend. There is not a lot a cross recognition so it becomes a costly exercise. There will always be additional PD required around Tax & AR (matters that are not specific to SMSF), but in the last 3 years my formal hours were just under 250 hours
I have no problems keeping a training register but working out whether I have met the minimum requirements is difficult.
Poor babies! FP’s simply to provide good planning advice have to fulfill TASA, SMSF, Credit, and their normal FP obligations which depending on their qualifications may then be further pushed to include Securities, Margin Lending, Estate Planning and other segments that add on more time and obligations. Welcome to the real world of planning and not the scribbled diagram one page quasi-crap accountants used to do!
Hello Mr Anonymous.
Thank you for your insight.
I am pleased you are not holding any grudges against anyone.
I think you also failed to mention that;
– your licensee keeps all of your CPD records for you
– your licensee organises and runs most or all of your CPD training – you just have to turn up
– you have access to Kaplan or some other type of online training to mop up the balance – and we all know how hard (not) Kaplan is.
– and your licensee will advise you of your requirements and what CPD requirements you have not satisfied as yet.
So yes the real world.
It is lucky you have your licensee to hold your hand through all of this as it appears you may not be able to cope with the difficulty of it all
The poor accountant needs to
– manage their own registers
– organise all of the own training to attend, and
– pays for all of their own training.
Poor baby you have it so hard.
I feel sorry for you.
Original Anon here, no grudges, seriously[b] I love you guys[/b], it’s where i get my best laughs!
And to answer your amusing furphies:
a) [b]No[/b], wrong, managing our own register as well (so so so terribly hard that bit)
b)[b] No,[/b] wrong, self licensed actually, kinda shuts down the rest of your points, but let’s continue I’m having fun
c) [[color=green]b]Yes[/b][/color], Kaplan is a paid service, you should try it, it’s what real planning professionals do, but then again parting with money isn’t something you guys do easily, is it? Especially not for something so ‘worthless’ as training and ongoing education.
d)[b] No, [/b] wrong, it’s called keeping track on your own register like a big person and checking what your professional association(s) and governing bodies stipulate is required. Again sorta like a real planning professionals do.
e) [b]No,[/b] wrong, (Wow, you are really [i]good[/i] at this!!) as mentioned, self licensed, you know the thing most of you guys are too scared to do?
f) and fyi, by necessity having to fly to various capital cities for the level of training I prefer, my personal education costs (not counting staff taken) topped over $14k to 30 June gone, but then again I am not the ‘poor baby’ crying that it it is all so hard or costly or confusing. So that is a [b]Wrong[/b] there too.
Please do come play again, [i]this was fun[/i]…[color=red] 🙂 🙂 [/color]
Not brave enough to put you name on your post Mr Anonymous. The issue is not one just for accountants. It covers all professions advising in the SMSF space
Um, yeah, that’s why they first invented that word ‘Anonymous’. Real quick off the mark with the zappy comments there
At last some common sense. I just hope the ATO will sit up and listen for a change instead of imposing this ridiculous unecessary costly reporting on pension members with small balances.