ATO ruling gets the thumbs up from SMSF Association

The SMSF Association has backed the ATO’s decision to give SMSF trustees an extra three months to declare any tax planning schemes where personal services income has been diverted to their SMSF.

The ATO’s deadline has been extended to 30 April 2017 to give trustees more time to come forward voluntarily to disclose their participation in such schemes and potentially reduce any penalties.

SMSF Association Head of Technical Peter Hogan says: “The initial Taxpayer Alert (TA) 2016/6 was issued in April last year with a deadline of 31 January, so the decision by the ATO to extend the deadline is welcomed.

“The Association encourages all SMSF professionals and trustees to consider carefully all their investments and arrangements with all parties, whether related or not, for compliance with the superannuation and tax laws as well as any other relevant legislation.

“They should also revisit TA 2016/6. The Association encourages all SMSF professionals to revisit this alert to review its potential impact on their SMSF clients.
“In addition, consideration should be given to disclosing any arrangements that give any concern in order to take advantage of this ATO extension deadline.”

Hogan says the extension highlights a wider concern that ongoing, day-to-day compliance of SMSFs is still extremely important and should not be ignored, despite the overwhelming focus on implementing the 1 July 2017 Government changes to superannuation.

“Although planning for and implementing strategies over the next five months in anticipation of the 1 July 2017 changes is critical, trustees and their advisors need to be diligent and cognisant of their ongoing obligations arising over this period, and take appropriate action in a timely manner.”