Speaking to SMSF Adviser, Mr Lesh said the events-based reporting requirements set to commence on 1 July 2018, are incredibly complicated for SMSF practitioners.
Mr Lesh said the reporting requirements will mean SMSF practitioners have to notify the ATO of different events at different times.
“I think it’s ridiculous. [The ATO] is asking [practitioners] to notify them of some events 28 days after the month in which they happened and to notify them of other things 10 days after the end of the month in which they occurred. This is absolute bureaucracy gone mad,” said Mr Lesh.
“They’re [also] asking every single person in Australia to lodge pension information. So if you’ve got a pension where your balance is only $100,000, you’ve still got to lodge pension information with the ATO.”
He has also criticised the accounting bodies and professional associations for failing to lobby against the new requirements.
“I just think what’s being proposed is so complicated and such a ridiculous collection of information,” he said,
“For firms that aren’t automated, it’s going to be nearly impossible for them to meet these requirements. They’re going to have to do the forms manually through the tax agent portal which as we know is unreliable.”
The initial lodgements, Mr Lesh said, will all be through the portal and with the portal so unstable at the moment this will make it extremely difficult for practitioners to notify the ATO.
Mr Lesh said having a quarterly form that’s lodged every quarter would be a better solution for SMSF firms.
“[In addition], there should only be reporting requirements for pensions that need to be reported, not every single pension in the country,” he said.
I couldn’t agree more. The cost of running a family SMSF is being undermined thanks to this Government flooding the Superannuation industry and Trustees with bureacratic legislation which will hit accounting firms hard.
Start hitting Trustees with outrageous penalties and just see the response from decent hard working mums and dads just trying to make a living.
We are encouraged to work hard for a living and save for retirement and now these same tax payers and retirees in our community are being slugged once again. Will politicians be subject to the same ridiculous rules and regulations. You bet they won’t.
Ron and all of his supporters are completely wrong and this is a great measure. It will stop the dodgy accountants and financial advisers from being able to back documents. Too long has there been a standard practice of completing the annual return anywhere up till May, and then commencing/changing pensions at 1 July the prior year because they realise there is a big accumulation balance and there will be less tax to pay if they do that. In case you’re not aware, that is Part IVA tax avoidance (a scheme whose main purpose is to receive a tax benefit).
I’m worried about people and the majority of hard working accountants an financial planners that want to spend their time servicing their clients – not filling out forms for the ATO
This push by the ATO is totally unwarranted. With their in reliance reliance on Auditors, both for APRA-regulated funds and for ATO-regulated funds, to ensure compliance with SISA and SISR, can someone please explain to me why it is necessary for such damned reporting of “time-based” events. What purpose does all this serve, that existing compliance measures already cover off on? Obviously the politicians, once again, appear to be sitting on their hands when all these new requirements were being drafted by the officals in Treasury. The old adage of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” is still relevent today. Well done Ron Lesh for making this point!
Maybe all you accountants need to move out of the cottage industry and modernise. The days of doing the scorekeeping once a year for your SMSFs has gone. What’s wrong with delivering real time solutions to clients instead of sticking your heads in the sand. The days of “we’ve always done it this way” are past, perhaps you should be taking the view of “how can we do this better”.
One wouldve thought as the (self-proclaimed) pre-eminent supplier of online SMSF solutions that Mr Leash would be championing moves by the ATO/Treasury to bring things into the new millenium. Maybe it’s just showing the deficiences in his product…
Cost you charlatan
Typical cottage accountant, knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing….who’s the charlatan?
Anonymous, you are obviously from the generation that spends most of its life with its head stuck in a phone! I doubt you own a business, obviously your an employee who expects to come to work and have everything laid on to make your life as easy as possible. Perhaps we could replace your keyboard with just one big red button that does everything so you could sit there and push it each day, collect your pay and go home without a care in the world. The business owners that employ you need to speak out against wasteful regulation. Otherwise, when the considerable costs overwhelm income, people like you get marching orders on a Friday afternoon!
George, obviously touched a nerve there with my comment. In contrast to all the invective in your post George, I own my own business, I employ staff, I pay them well and I make a tidy profit, thank you very much. I do go home without a care in the world (mostly) because I know that I’ve structured my business to suit me and to suit my clients. I know that the cottage industry where you live and work isnt going to cut it any more in the 21st century. I know that most of my clients, from ALL generations even the boomers, spend a lot of their time on phones and tablets. But unlike you who sees this as a negative, i’ve chosen to embrace it, build a successful, profitable business around it. My clients can log-on via their phones and tablets and know where their SMSF is at any time of the day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. They dont have to worry about going to multiple sites and updating their spreadsheets, it’s all there for them. They don’t have to wait until you and your oompaloopa’s in cottage land process everything and run up the scorecard once a year. In an ever connected online world which option do you think clients will gravitate to? Obviously you are from a generation that spends all your time in a ledger and will look up one day to realise that the world has left dinosaurs like you in the 20th century and that buyers for cottage industry businesses like yours will be thin on the ground.
Our clients can log in any time and see their balance too. That doesn’t mean I think the ATO should know their every move the second they make it. Most people do the right thing. This is big brother gone mad. The excuse of people going over the limits doesn’t cut it. I already know which clients are close to or over the limits. Some of these clients are not interested in the extra services and opt for the cheaper, once a year option. There is added unnecessary cost for them with zero added value.
Yes so next stage will be daily reporting of personal transactions. Actually why not lets go the whole hog and just give the ATO every single detail about our personal finances daily. And for the record I have used Rons product for 20 yrs and it is second to none. At least he has the balls to stand up and put a name to his very valid comments which is more than I can say for some too afraid to come out from behind their computer screens in case it should affect their hip pockets.
I am sticking up for my clients – unlike others. It is them who have to do the work and it is their clients who have to pay for this reporting. Is that fair ? If I s only interested in selling software, I would not have started this campaign in the first place.. And BTW, at least I have the balls to put my name to my comments – unlike many others
Still trying to figure out exactly why they need all of this information (at all, let alone in “real time”), and what they intend to do with it. Seems like data gathering for the sake of it, rather than for a specific purpose.
If all they want is pension commencements, payments and balances then surely this could be reported quite simply by adding a few questions to the annual Tax Return.
Why this incessant need by regulators to measure everything! AUS was seen as progressive when it introduced self-assessment decades ago i.e. assume 99% of the population is basically honest & will comply, then test that supposition with ATO audit? That vision seems to have been lost, as computers and data have permeated our lives. Just because data may be available, doesn’t mean the Govt should collect it! The generation that has inherited Treasury & the ATO have lost the original self assessment vision, and just want to measure everything just to show they are doing their job, and in the process strangling this country and its tax paying population.
Just as with the licensing requirements coming in I point the finger here also at big 4 banks – they want to complicate SMSF’s as much as possible as they are losing so much ground in this space.
Typical useless complications of a bureaucratic state. The transformation of the public administration is very worrying. Still unbelievable that all this comes from a liberal government
ATO is also introducing “Single Touch Payroll”. Don’t be fooled by the simplistic title.
All employers will be required to advise ATO of all employee details and payroll payments, every single payday.
The real agenda is complete surveillance of all Australian workers, in real time.
Events based reporting from superannuation funds is more of the same.
Extensive digital surveillance of all citizens.
George Orwell must be turning in his grave.
Bravo Mr. Lesh, my thoughts precisely. We are already doing all the ‘heavy lifting’, we must be so good at it that the ATO require more (thanks Treasury). What is more worrying is the internal ‘backfilling’ requirement in the intervening period, inadvertent errors may lead excess transfer balance earnings should someone press the wrong button. Then of course (for the weary practitioner already working 25/8), another later of internal compliance to ensure the ATO have received and correctly processed all entries to the TBA – compliance costs are set to soar – tax equity arguments, a massive fail!
Ron is right on the money. Firstly, why is this even happening under a Liberal government at all? Secondly, yes the silence from the professional bodies is deafening. How can we hope they will put up any kind of fight against Labor’s proposal to ravage discretionary trusts. They are cowards in the face of Government. They need to get much more aggressive in promoting the interests of the professions and their clients. It’s time for a new breed of activist advisers to rise up and take control of their organisations and make them into effective lobbyists. Steve Gethin – Tax Lawyer
Well said
The country is being run by Treasury for the benefit of their bureaucrat mates – the politicians are too stupid to see it and the accounting bodies are so pro the govt they have stopped representing their members or common sense a long time ago
I absolutely agree with what Ron has said here. To my knowledge this is not a government policy decision but is coming from the bureaucracy with nothing better to do than dream up ways to add more red tape to our professional lives. Most of these pensions are not taxable so what earthly reason is there for this extra reporting. Come on Professional Bodies. You let us down with the Financial Advisory reforms that saw the Accountants Exemption removed. Don’t let this happen by remaining silent on this proposal.
I agree. It is stupid that they have complicated things so much so unnecessarily. Once a quarter is plenty. Even where practitioners are automated, it will be difficult to know straight away what every transaction is. If something happens on the last day of the month, there is only 10 days to report. For a small practitioner, this means it is almost impossible to even take a week off. Even in larger firms, clients are generally allocated to a single person who is responsible for their work. The increased pressure on practitioners workload is becoming ridiculous. I may be cynical but I’m sure the over-complication of the system is designed to push people away from SMSFs and discourage saving.
Thank you, Mr Lesh, for highlighting the lack of action from the accounting bodies. I am a member of CAANZ and am not surprised about their silence. Just look at what they did, more to the point didn’t do, to protect members’ interest when the accountant’s exemption was debated. Basically nothing.
Good on you for speaking out Mr Lesh. As for the accounting bodies, they don’t care about accountants and SMSFs, Even though they are members, such practitioners are too small time for their high ideals & ethics. But most notably silent has been the SMSF Association who one would expect to be extremely vocal about [u]implementation [/u]of the new rules. We all know that the AUS bureaucracy is notorious for over-complicated systems, with no concept of how the real world works, having never worked in it. The SMSF Association is not delivering the advocacy that it was created for. A CPA-style rebellion is needed by SMSF Assoc members, or we run the risk of the bureaucrats running rough-shod all over us….again!
Well the SMSF Association has a new CEO with John Maroney so now is a good time as any to push for action – although the ship may have already sailed!
I am a member of both CAANZ and CPA Australia – don’t expect our “professional” accounting bodies to speak-up in the interests of their members against such changes. It won’t happen.
We are back to the RBL days but this time, the reporting is electronic rather than paper based.
Either way, it’s just a compliance drag and ultimately doesn’t make the system better or more efficient, just keeps bureaucrats in work.
And the ATO could never manage RBL’s properly and the Pension Caps will be the same. Bureaucracy Gone Mad !!