The ATO will wind down its current SMSF member verification system (MVS), used by Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA)-regulated funds when making a rollover to an SMSF, and replace it with a new system that will become mandatory for the funds to use.
In an update on its website directed at APRA-regulated funds, the ATO stated the MVS, which is used to confirm a member requesting a rollover to an SMSF is a member of that fund, will be replaced by the SMSF verification service (SVS), which went live this month.
“This new service is now available and will allow you to electronically verify the SMSF complying status and the SMSF member information against ATO held data prior to making a rollover to an SMSF,” the regulator said.
“As the SVS was deployed in March 2021, you may commence using this service to verify SMSF and member details once your system functionality is built.”
It noted manual verification may be required in some cases and APRA-regulated funds would be unable to use the SVS if they did not hold a member’s tax file number. It said it would provide further details about the manual verification after 1 May.
On its SVS Business Implementation Guide page, it stated the use of the service would allow “major aggregators of super data, such as APRA funds and administrators, the ability to obtain verified SMSF details prior to processing electronic rollovers and payments to SMSFs via SuperStream transactions”.
“The use of SVS will be mandatory for SMSF rollovers for APRA funds and their administrators as it is legislated for them to use an electronic service upheld by the ATO to confirm SMSF details prior to an APRA to SMSF rollover,” it said.
“APRA funds and their administrators must not solely rely on the SVS to meet their ‘know your client’ obligations. They are still required to use their current processes and procedures prior to processing rollovers to SMSFs in order to satisfy their own trustee processes and obligations.”
