The plethora of changes affecting SMSFs is expected to continue, with transparency a certain and imminent development in the sector, according to the SMSF Association.
“In terms of the lay of the land, there’s been a number of topical things happening in the marketplace, with a few of them dependent on political movements in Canberra,” SMSF Association head of technical Peter Hogan told the Class Connect 2018 event in Sydney today.
“I’ve been involved with superannuation broadly for 35 years and there hasn’t been a single year where there hasn’t been some sort of legislation change, and there’s been about 15 major changes along that time frame as well, so it’s all part and parcel of the nature of the beast.
“But greater transparency is just a given. It will happen.
“The days of the SMSF being a bit of a black box when it comes to transactions and so on is just not going to last and everything will be far more transparent, and all online and highly visible in the near future.”
During his presentation, Hogan touched on key issues affecting the sector just in the past 12 months, including political leadership changes, the maximum number of fund members increasing to six, proposed triennial audits, Labor’s excess franking credit ban policy, amendments to limited recourse borrowing arrangements, and transfer balance account reporting.
In addition, he commented on the various reports and findings on SMSF advice conducted by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Productivity Commission and banking royal commission.
“We’re hopeful that additional educational requirements happen sooner rather than later around advisers who provide SMSF advice, in addition to the general requirements that licensees and authorised representatives currently have,” he told selfmanagedsuper.
“We believe it’s a highly specialised area of advice and deserves its own designation and qualification.”
