Instances of transfer balance account report (TBAR) duplication by SMSF trustees and their accountants are occurring, indicating a lack of communication between the two parties, according to Class.
Class chief executive Kevin Bungard told selfmanagedsuper while this is not a regular occurrence, he had seen ATO information that indicates trustees and accountants are reporting the same data twice.
Bungard said the duplication is not limited to trustees and accountants, and could also occur where funds have changed administrators.
“So if they’ve changed administrators in the last 12 months, it’s possible that both administrators could end up reporting the TBAR data. So there’s some confusion about who should report the balances,” he said.
“The new administrator may feel that they should do it because they’re picking up work from 1 July, therefore maybe they should do this reporting, so I think there’s room for confusion.”
He also said while there is generally clarity around who has done the tax return and who has not, this clarity is lacking in relation to the TBAR.
“Obviously going forward people will get better at figuring out who’s doing what,” he said.
Class compliance team member Philip Boadi said the ATO had reported SMSF trustees had committed mistakes in their TBAR manual lodgements, but technology will eliminate the chances of making such mistakes.
The mistakes include trustees reporting data with incorrect information, such as marking the effective date for the event as 1 July 2017 instead of 30 June 2017, or failing to report their Australian business number for the particular fund.
“Technology will enable them to get the reporting right because the technology does not allow them to generate a file if there is any misinformation,” Boadi told selfmanagedsuper following an SMSF Association local community event in Sydney today.
“The file has to be complete before it can be generated and launched with the ATO. This is the TBAR solution that is built by software providers.”
