Last month, the ATO completed its SAN misuse mailout for the 2019 SMSF annual return which was aimed at identifying the incorrect reporting of SMSF auditor details on the SAR.
As part of the most recent mailout, the ATO also asked SMSF auditors to cross-check the date the audit report was completed for each audit to identify where practitioners have lodged returns before the completion of the audit report.
In an online update, the ATO said it has now received a response from 41.38 per cent of the auditors it contacted.
“A total of 190 auditors found one or more funds in their client list which they did not complete an audit on, resulting in 703 instances of SAN misuse involving 357 tax agents,” the ATO said.
“These 703 instances of SAN misuse will now be investigated to determine whether the reporting was inadvertent or deliberate.”
The ATO also received advice of 8,316 audit date changes. Most of these, it said, have been administrative errors and very few have been after the date of lodgement.
“We are also concerned about the significant number of audit date changes reported by auditors,” the Tax Office said.
“SMSF annual return preparers must exercise more care when completing SMSF auditor details to avoid making errors.”
The response rate for the 2019 SAR, the ATO said, has already been higher than the 2018 mailout.
“Compared to the 2018 mailout, while the instances of SAN misuse have declined, more auditors have reported the incorrect reporting of their details, involving an increased number of tax agents,” it said.
SMSF auditors who have not yet had the chance to respond still have time to do so, the ATO said.
“We would like to hear from you even if no instances of SAN misuse have occurred,” it said.
The date issue is also a software issue. You need a date in there to validate the return, then remember to change it when the audit report is received.
Let’s hope they do something about this. I have been reporting misuse of my auditor number for three years now and nothing has happened. The perpetrator is a registered tax agent and also an SMSF auditor and should know better, What makes it worse the misuse applies to his own SMSF.
Probably some of these date issues stem from the requirement to produce a signed SAR for audit, but the SAR requires an audit date field to be completed before it can be issued for signing.
Making a mountain out of a molehill that’s for sure. Perhaps the question should be “Has the audit been completed?” With a yes/no answer. It would be solve the issue entirely.