On its website, the ATO said it has recently written to around 25,000 individuals, and their registered tax agents, who claimed a personal superannuation contribution deduction in their 2019 tax return, and details of an acknowledged notice of intent has not been reported by their fund via the Member Account Transaction Service.
While that is a reporting requirement for funds regulated by APRA and not SMSFs, the regulator said some SMSF trustees and members may have mistakenly received this letter.
The ATO has called on trustees and their tax agents to help them accurately identify personal super contribution payments that are not required to be recorded in the Member Account Transaction Service.
Further, it said that when claiming a personal superannuation contribution deduction in an individual income tax return, it is important to include the SMSF’s full name, the SMSF’s Australian business number (ABN) or tax file number (TFN), and the account number.
“If you are an SMSF trustee/member who received this letter and you have lodged a notice of intent to claim a deduction with your SMSF and received an acknowledgement from your SMSF of the notice prior to lodging your return, you can ignore this letter,” the ATO said.
SMSFs do report personal contributions in the tax return against the respective member. Label R2 assessable personal contributions plus in their member statement section Label B. But they don’t send a separate report (MATS) to the ATO. The ATO should be able to cross-reference SMSFs with the member/tax return sections so not sure why they would write -unless the tax returns were not properly completed?
Obtaining written confirmation from funds during Covid has been vastly slower, and often requires repeated documents to be provided.