Speaking at the recent Class Connect 2019 conference, Class Super product manager Paul Li said since the introduction of the transfer balance cap, Class had followed the ATO’s lead in facilitating better real-time visibility of SMSF member balance information to prevent cap breaches.
“The ATO back in April brought a lot of member-level super information into their taxation portal to make it much more visible, because there were a number of cases where clients were inadvertently breaching their transfer balance cap because they were not keeping information up to date,” Mr Li said.
“Class is all about helping you to track your TBAR and manage this very complex process — we’ve introduced the ability for you to track your TBAR at any particular time, so whenever you have a TBAR event, we will place this on the fund level TBAR console and track that against your transfer balance cap.”
Mr Li added that the software would warn users when a proposed action such as starting a pension for an SMSF member would take the client over the transfer balance cap.
Looking at the client’s total super balance, Class had recently introduced the ability for users to filter their SMSF clients by balance level and determine their eligibility for contribution schemes such as catch-up contributions, Mr Li said.
“The total super balance is a key concept that came from the 2017 super reforms, and it’s important that you get it right because it affects your eligibility for a number of things you can and can’t do in the fund,” he said.
“Class has enhanced their TSB screen to help you sync information between the ATO and what you have in Class, but beyond that you can actually identify all the clients that may be eligible or not eligible for additional contributions.
“As part of the TSB and TBAR enhancements, we have actually moved some of the key information [around super balances] from the member-level and bumped it up to the business-level console, so you can filter client balance levels and find those that may be eligible for things like the concessional contribution carry-forward.”
Mr Li said this functionality would make it easier for users to add value to their clients by proactively recommending appropriate contribution strategies based on their balance level.
