SMSF advisers and trustees must be aware that notifying the ATO about the use of the capital gains tax (CGT) relief provisions, included as part of the superannuation reforms introduced on 1 July, cannot be done via the annual return of the fund.
“Don’t look for the declaration in the annual return – it’s not there. It’s in the CGT Schedule,” SuperConcepts SMSF technical services executive manager Mark Ellem told delegates at the recent selfmanagedsuper SMSF Professionals Day 2017 in Sydney.
Ellem added the relevant question in the CGT schedule was question 8.
“The last bit asks: ‘Have you chosen to apply transitional CGT relief for a super fund? Yes/No, Notional gain, Amount deferred,’” he noted.
“Now normally you don’t have to lodge a CGT schedule unless you have capital gains or losses of more than $10,000, but you’ll need to lodge if the fund is applying CGT relief.”
Further, he pointed out the information needing to be declared on the CGT schedule made it clear the onus on accurate record-keeping lay with the adviser and the trustee.
Apart from declaring relief has been applied and the associated notional gain, question 8 on the form does not require any additional information to be provided, he said.
“It doesn’t ask which assets you applied the relief to or what the notional gain on each asset is. That information is not there. None of these details are sent to the tax office. They don’t want to know,” he said.
“That’s up to you to keep track of. So again, in your systems you’ve got to be able to keep track of which assets relief was applied to, making sure they are eligible assets, and if it is an unsegregated fund, the notional gain has been calculated and deferred, keeping track of that notional gain.”
