Small relief as profession 'anxiously awaits' education certainty
Licensees and existing advisers have been granted some relief in relation to their reporting obligations, as the SMSF profession awaits final details of its new professional standards requirements.
An instrument, released today, makes changes to reporting obligations for licensees to ASIC. As explained by CPA’s general manager for policy and advocacy, Paul Drum, it does not make any changes to financial adviser’s or AFS licensee’s overall obligations.
Between 1 January 2019 and 14 November 2019, licensees do not need to advise ASIC about:
-any provisional relevant providers they have authorised
-the start date of their CPD year
-failure(s) by their relevant providers to comply with CPD requirements, and/or
-existing providers that have passed the exam.
Instead, licensees will have 30 business days from 15 November 2019 to tell ASIC this information.
This deadline relief is not surprising, as details from FASEA on many aspects of the new professional standards requirements are not yet finalised.
“Without the final details from FASEA, it would be difficult for ASIC to finalise their systems to accept the additional information they need to collect such as professional advisers, exams and CPD information, including failure to meet CPD requirements,” said Licensing for Accountants chief executive Kath Bowler.
“While everyone anxiously awaits the final details, this does at least provide some relief for licensees and existing advisers in their reporting obligations,” she told SMSF Adviser.
“This is a relatively minor piece in the professional standards puzzle though and it certainly feels to me that much of the planning industry is in limbo till FASEA make their final announcements. Let’s hope that the wait isn’t too much longer and that common sense prevails with their requirements,” she said.
The incoming education standards, as they are currently written, do not distinguish between a full or limited AFSL, and require accountants with bachelor degrees and postgraduate education to undertake further training - in the order of $10,000 in some cases - to comply.
