The ATO has revealed the magnitude of the issue the industry is facing with regard to trustees who are failing to comply with their legal obligation to lodge an SMSF annual return (SAR) for their fund.
“For [the] 2023 [income year] SARs, we’re somewhere in the vicinity of 90,000 funds that are still yet to lodge. In addition to that, we’ve got about 60,000 [SARs] that are still outstanding for the 2022 year as well,” ATO acting deputy commissioner Paul Delahunty told attendees of a webinar held by The Auditors Institute last week.
“So it is a growing issue for us and it is something we are turning our minds to in relation to a compliance response.”
Further, Delahunty pointed out around 5000 funds that were registered in the 2023 income year had not lodged an initial SAR. To this end, he emphasised the ATO treats non-compliance of this nature as a red flag for the likelihood of illegal early access of superannuation benefits.
He confirmed the regulator is about to undertake another round of trustee communication as a means to combat this trend, in addition to withholding the complying status of the offending funds on Super Fund Lookup.
“The trustees will be reminded of their lodgement requirements and the fact they have not met a due date with targeted nudge messages. [In fact], we’re just about to send out a targeted mail-out in the next week or two,” he noted.
“This is going to particularly some of these funds, but it is an ongoing part of our program in relation to engagement and nudge messaging.”
He stressed the persistent group of trustees who repeatedly ignore these reminder messages will face more severe enforcement action that could involve a fund audit, default assessment or the disqualification of the offending SMSF trustees.
