ATO releases new online service updates
The ATO has released a range of updates to its online services for SMSF professionals and trustees, including improved reporting of concessional contributions and the resolution of previous issues with excess transfer balance alerts.
In an update posted to its website on Wednesday, the ATO said the changes would “improve how individuals, super providers and tax professionals can see super information on ATO online services”.
A new screen would now be available within the ATO’s online services for individuals and their accountants or advisers to view their unused concessional contributions for the year, based on the reported contributions the ATO had received for the member.
However, the office acknowledged this information would be less useful for defined benefit fund members given the delay in contribution reporting for these types of funds.
Additionally, tax agents would be able to add in an SMSF’s electronic service address within the client details section of a fund member’s ATO online profile.
The ATO added that it had corrected mistaken alerts that were appearing in its online portal around the member having an excess transfer balance amount, when the amount had already been corrected.
“Individuals with excess transfer balance are shown alerts on ATO online advising they have excess transfer balance and explaining whether a determination or commutation authority has been issued depending on what stage of the process applies,” the ATO said.
“The alerts should be removed once the excess has been rectified. In some instances, alerts for individuals with excess transfer balance were incorrectly displayed after an individual had rectified their excess. This issue has now been resolved and alerts are only being displayed during the period an individual has excess transfer balance.”
Further, changes had been made to the way SMSF membership details were displayed in the ATO’s online system, as new SMSF members would now be displayed immediately once they had been added to the fund via the Australian Business Register, rather than only displaying once the fund had lodged its first annual return.
To line up with the new restrictions around late-lodging funds, an individual’s SMSF membership would also only be displayed if the fund had complying status in the Super Fund Lookup system, the ATO said.
