The ATO has provided the superannuation industry with additional information regarding SuperStream in an effort to address some of the common errors that have arisen in the system to date.
In relation to fund rollovers, the ATO has detailed the reasons as to why Australian Prudential Regulation Authority-regulated super funds might receive a ‘not verified’ response from the SMSF Verification Service (SVS) when attempting to transfer a member’s benefits to a self-managed fund.
According to the ATO, the three most common reasons triggering these scenarios are that no bank account details have been recorded with the regulator for the SMSF in question, the fund has not recorded a rollover SuperStream-enabled electronic service address and there is a mismatch between the SMSF or member information and the ATO’s data.
In response, the regulator provided means by which these issues can be rectified.
“These issues are easily resolved by the member notifying us of changes to their SMSF. Members can also speak with a customer service representative regarding their SMSF by calling 13 10 20 and using fast key code 4 then 1,” it said.
“Request for SMSF manual verification will only be accepted where you do not hold the member’s TFN (tax file number) or where the SVS is unavailable for an extended period of time.”
With regard to release authority (RA) processing, the regulator has provided instruction as to the steps that need to be taken once a message about this type of transaction is received.
To this end, the ATO stipulated when an RA SuperStream message is received, the first action required is to respond with a release authority statement (RAS) where all or some of the amount requested can be released, or provide a release authority error response (RAER) where no monies will be able to be released.
“Send the RAS or RAER message electronically via SuperStream to us within 10 business days from the date of the RA. You may incur a non-compliance penalty up to a maximum of 20 penalty units if you do not return the message to us within 10 days,” it said.
Finally, it advised trustees to ensure the payment reference number for any release payment matches the payment reference number contained in the relevant SuperStream message.
SMSFs were incorporated into the SuperStream system on 1 October.
