A poll of SMSF advisers has revealed the majority of them will not be relying on clients’ myGov accounts as the primary source of truth to monitor transfer balance accounts (TBA) once indexation has been applied to the general transfer balance cap (TBC).
The quick survey was conducted during an Accurium technical webinar held today and showed 44 per cent of respondents admitting they will be using their current fund administration platform to monitor their clients’ personal TBA after 1 July 2021 when indexation of the TBC is introduced.
Despite this predominant sentiment, a large group of practitioners, 32 per cent, did admit they will be using the fund member’s myGov account to keep track of their personal TBA. A further 11 per cent said they would be relying on spreadsheets as a source of TBA truth.
Accurium head of education Mark Ellem said intentions to use administrative platforms as a primary tool for tracking client TBAs can be a sound strategy if everything is done correctly.
“A lot of the admin platforms have the ability for you to keep track of the person’s, or the individual’s, transfer balance account provided you are entering all the relevant data in relation to other funds that they might be a member of,” Ellem noted.
“That’s an excellent option to utilise to be able to have your own records and then use the myGov as a reconciliation [tool] to make sure the myGov has all those TBA events that should have been reported, what ones might be outstanding and to ascertain ones that have been reported whether they’re correct or not.”
During the webinar, adviser concerns were again raised over the limited access practitioners had to SMSF members’ myGov accounts.
Currently, myGov accounts can only be accessed by the members themselves and their personal tax agents, and Ellem confirmed this was still the case.
“We’re not aware of any advancement on that. We’re aware of what the ATO’s comments have been about that and issues that they have, mainly as I understand it, around privacy issues,” he said.
TBC indexation is a topic that will be discussed in length at SMSFPD Digital 2021. To find out more or register for the event, please visit https://web.cvent.com/event/1432890d-987b-46a3-970a-5d8043c4258f/summary?RefId=Summary.
