Linda Bruce, senior technical services manager for Colonial First State, said in the latest FirstTech podcast that the ATO indicated that it would be focusing on data-matching inconsistencies this financial year as many people rush to lodge their tax returns before pre-filled information becomes available.
“The ATO pre-fills tax returns with all the available information reported from organisations such as the employer, financial institutions and private health funds.
“Generally, the ATO’s pre-filled information is not available until late July. However, many people rush to lodge their tax returns as soon as the financial year ends before the pre-filled information becomes available. As a result, often taxpayers fail to include all income from multiple sources when lodging their tax returns,” Bruce said.
“One category that is particularly important for advisers is if their clients have made personal deductible contributions to their super fund during the financial year. If the personal deductible contribution was made to a large fund, there should be pre-filled data in the Personal Super Contributions item of the client’s individual tax return.”
She said the tax return instructions for this are contained in item D12 under the deduction section of the individual supplementary tax return.
Bruce continued that to claim the personal contributions as a tax deduction the client needs to lodge a valid Notice of Intent with their super fund and the fund must acknowledge the receipt of that NOI.
“Since the 2018-19 financial year, large super funds must report amounts acknowledged in a valid NOI to the ATO within 10 business days. The ATO will then pre-fill the personal super contributions item in a client’s individual tax return,” she said.
“However, this reporting is not required for an SMSF. If a client is a member of an SMSF and made a personal contribution to the SMSF, this tax return item is unlikely to be pre-filled.”
Bruce said if a client made a personal deductible contribution to a large fund, it is best practice to delay lodging a tax return until the pre-filled information shows up in the client’s tax return. If this tax return item by the end of July is still not pre-filled, advisers should take the initiative to check with the fund to confirm that they have acknowledged the receipt of the valid NOI.
“It may be because the client has lodged the NOI with a super fund, but the fund never received it and therefore never acknowledged the receipt of the NOI,” she said.
“In this case, it may still be possible to lodge a valid NOI with the fund before the tax return is lodged so long as the client hasn’t commenced an income stream and the super fund still holds the contributions.”
However, she warned that if the tax return is lodged without the fund’s acknowledgement of the valid NOI, the deduction for personal contribution included in a tax return can be disallowed by the ATO.
