ATO tipped to take tougher stance on late TBARs next year

While some funds are already reported on a quarterly basis, Ms Timms said this will still be a big shift for some practitioners and their clients.

She also stated that funds would be required to report any unreported events that occurred during the 2022–23 financial year by 28 October, where they were previously an annual reporter.

“That’s going to be a tight time frame from a lot of people and wonder on what extent people are going to be relying on being able to lodge things late and whether that will see more actions from the ATO?” she questioned.

Ms Timms said the ATO had taken a fairly lenient and educative approach with transfer balance account reporting since it first came in.

“We’ve never seen any kind of action in relation to the late lodgement of a TBAR, and I’m wondering at what point we might start to see them cracking down on that,” she warned.

The fact the SMSF sector as a whole is moving to a quarterly reporting framework suggests the ATO may have concerns about the backdating of pensions and trustees changing tax strategies to suit tax situations.

“It will be interesting to see how it all rolls out,” she said.

Speaking to SMSF Adviser back in August, ATO client engagement director Dalila Vellotti said the 1 July start date effectively provides SMSFs and professionals a year to prepare.

However, once that period starts, anything that’s unreported will need to be reported.

“So, it’s not a case of ‘well, I’ve got the annual concession; I can just rely on that’. You need to get all your reporting up to date so that you’re able to report quarterly from 1 July,” she warned.

The ATO is encouraging the practitioners to identify which clients will be impacted and let them know about the change.

“Get your reporting in as soon as possible. Don’t leave it [until] the last moment,” Mr Vellotti cautioned.