A poll conducted among SMSF practitioners has revealed the new transfer balance account report (TBAR) timeframe to be introduced in the coming financial year is likely to cause some compliance difficulty for trustees.
The ATO announced in June that all SMSFs will have to lodge their TBAR on a quarterly basis, that is, 28 days after the end of the most recent quarter, after 1 July 2023. Currently a fund can report annually if the member with a retirement-phase pension has a total super balance of less than $1 million at the prior 30 June.
The poll, run during today’s Accurium SMSF Quarterly Update webinar, showed trustees have been inclined to date to stick with the reporting deadlines within which they have qualified from the inception of the TBAR obligations.
Specifically, 63 per cent of advisers surveyed indicated their clients submit their TBAR at the same time they lodge the fund annual return. A further 31 per cent of those polled said their clients fulfil reporting requirements as soon as possible after the transfer balance account event, while only 5 per cent of practitioners admitted their clients opt for submitting quarterly TBARs despite being categorised as an annual reporter.
“It seems still if the SMSF is an annual reporter then the report is made via the annual return,” Accurium head of education Mark Ellem noted.
“So we might see this is going to be a bit of a challenge to move into the streamlined [or quarterly] reporting for those who are annual reporters, particularly if the SMSF is only having accounts prepared on an annual basis.”
According to Ellem, preparing to transition to the new TBAR timeframe should commence now.
“There is plenty of time here, it’s not starting until 1 July 2023, but administrators and accountants need to be thinking about the processes they might have to put in place for that,” he suggested.
