Accountants providing advice in regards to superannuation fund rollovers via the ATO’s SuperStream service must either be fully licensed to do so or alternatively keep sufficient evidence that no advice was given when a rollover took place.
Holley Nethercote general manager Kath Bowler said the restriction on accountants also applied to those operating under a limited licensed model when it came to the use of the rollover service.
“You cannot advise someone on rollovers into or out of a super fund unless you’re licensed,” Bowler said during a presentation last week with Smarter SMSF chief executive Aaron Dunn.
“Unfortunately for most of our limited licensees, [rollovers via SuperStream] is going to go beyond their scope because normally you need full advice on the product that you’re coming from or to.”
She added the restrictions applied for new and existing funds, including SMSFs, and any rollovers that do take place must not be due to advice from an unlicensed practitioner.
“If the SMSF is already in existence, then you cannot technically give the advice that they should roll it into an SMSF because of the way in which the law has been written,” she said.
Bowler and Dunn noted some SMSF administration software did allow for rollovers via SuperStream to take place and accountants could use functionality within that software to document they did not provide any advice related to the rollover.
“If you are going to make use of these features, you really need evidence that advice has not been given,” Bowler said.
She added forms indicating that no advice was provided were being created by firms such as Holley Nethercote and Smarter SMSF, with Dunn adding the latter’s documents were based on the SMSF establishment document and followed specific steps to confirm no advice was given.
“The framework that [Smarter SMSF] has created goes from the initial conversation and through to the completion of the rollover,” he said.
“This is taken from the establishment form and with the confirmation of the instructions includes if the adviser has not given advice, as well as if the client had the opportunity to seek advice and whether they did or didn’t.”
