In the latest SMSF Adviser Podcast, Aaron Dunn, director of Smarter SMSF said although the advice industry generally works collaboratively, there are going to be pockets of the industry that see each other as “being higher and mightier than each other”.
“The challenge is there needs to be solutions that will accommodate the various stereotypes of SMSF trustees,” he said.
“The SMSF Association did research into behavioural types and found there are three types of behaviour in SMSF trustees – your control of behaviour, your outsource behaviour, and your coach seeker behaviour.
“The [trustee with] outsource behaviour will rely upon an adviser and will look to the accountant and the adviser to do everything, so the cohesion of those relationships is crucial and the client generally is prepared to pay for that.”
However, he said, it’s with the coach-seeker behaviour trustee that difficulties may arise.
“This is where people have enough information, do the due diligence themselves, they might just want strategic advice, not investment advice, and this is where things get a little bit more frosty,” he said.
“You’re trying to work out who’s doing what and that’s where people can overstep [their boundaries].
“The current framework does create problems in itself.”
Mr Dunn said a recent Law Reform Commission publication described SMSFs as “misfits” and said there is an issue with the construct of the Corporations Act and how advice can be applied because it has overlays in tax advice even though it’s a financial product.
“It’s about who’s who in the zoo,” he said.
“It’s that lack of clarity and what hat creates, and I think it equally creates the friction in this space as well.
“I have heard Michelle (Levy) say on several occasions that we want to be moving away from prescriptive things.
“So for example, if you look at the safe harbor steps, it’s got this tick-a-box feel – I’ve got to tick a box into moving into something that is professional standards.
“And the way in which that work can be done, allows advisors and professional advice to be fluid in what needs to occur in a client’s life.
“We are driven by events that happen in life – we’ll start pensions, make contributions and we might need insurance.
“There are unique elements that come into SMSFs and therefore, from an advice point of view, we want to be able to make sure that we can service the requirements of what trustees and members need.”
I would suggest this so called “coach-seeker behaviour trustee” is more the norm than the exception. Most SMSFs do not have financial advisers. The stats on that are not often quoted. It’s a moot point saying who can say what, when most SMSFs have only an accountant as their first port of call. And don’t assert that accountants are creating these relationships intentionally for some self-serving purpose to flaunt the financial services law. Its that these “coach seeker trustees” all too often “bully” their accountant and their staff into overstepping, whether that be into financial advice or even legal advice, just to save themselves money.
The strangulation of financial advisers by legislation has made them largely unaffordable.
Accountants, whether they want it or not, are the last line of defence in a system that does not encourage SMSFs to use financial advisers. The QAR is way off from addressing the issues. Hardly surprising for Government not to know how the real world works though is it?