The SMSF Professionals’ Association of Australia (SPAA) has further developed its educational support for its specialist members with the launch of an online technical mentoring program.
The new program is available for members holding SPAA SMSF specialist adviser and/or SPAA specialist auditor accreditation and will give these practitioners the ability to ask technical staff from the industry body for direct assistance on a range of industry issues, in turn raising the standard of advice and skill levels.
SPAA chief executive Andrea Slattery said the new initiative would allow the association’s specialist members to better understand and apply enhanced skills to complex matters through a fact-based guidance mentoring program.
“Our specialist members are recognised as the leading professionals in the SMSF sector, and this is another avenue for them to strengthen their knowledge and reinforce their pre-eminent position in the market,” Slattery said.
“SPAA has always placed enormous emphasis on the ongoing education of its members, and this online technical mentoring program is more evidence of our continued encouragement towards excellence.”
The pilot program would initially be available to 100 specialist members from early October, before the full program was made available to all SPAA specialist members at a later date, she said.
As the program is a service over and above the current membership, it will incur an additional fee.
This news comes as SPAA identified in-house asset rules as one of the biggest traps for SMSF trustees and advisers.
The industry association said it was concerned the rules continued to cause compliance breaches as they represented one of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) (SIS) Act ’s most complex sections.
SPAA warned breaches of the legislation could expose trustees to significant penalties and might lead to fund non-compliance or the possible disqualification of trustees.
“For the year ended 30 June 2013, the most reported breach by number were loan requirements at 21.3 per cent, with breaches of the in-house asset rules coming a close second at 18.3 per cent,” SPAA technical and professional standards director Graeme Colley said.
“However, by value, the in-house asset breaches accounted for 28.3 per cent of all breaches.
“These percentages signal that many trustees and their advisers do not have an understanding of the in-house assets or the fund is not administered as required by the SIS legislation.”
The education directions, rectification directions and administrative penalties introduced on 1 July for SMSFs had prompted a brush-up on all provisions of the SIS Act and Regulations for trustees and professionals to ensure funds met the rules and penalties were avoided, Colley said.
An in-house asset is defined as a loan to or an investment in a related party of the fund, an investment in a related trust of the fund or a lease of a fund asset to a related party. The SIS Act specifies the in-house assets of an SMSF must not exceed 5 per cent of the market value of the fund’s total assets.
