The latest industry research has revealed SMSF advisers are finding ATO-imposed event-based reporting is becoming increasingly challenging in their efforts to service the SMSF market.
Investment Trends data showed the number of advisers who indicated compliance with the ATO’s event-based reporting, such as the new compulsory quarterly timeframe for transfer balance account reports, is a struggle for them has increased steadily over the past three years.
In 2022, only 10 per cent of advisers surveyed expressed this sentiment, while 16 per cent felt this way in 2023 and 21 per cent concurred with this belief in 2024.
The analysis also discovered ATO interaction of a different kind was also proving difficult in SMSF advisers’ client activities. To this end, the practitioners who named ‘other’ as the biggest challenge in servicing the SMSF market jumped from 5 per cent in 2023 to 12 per cent in 2024. This general classification included the changing processes of the regulator and how they were leading to inconsistent outcomes from SMSF establishments.
However, the main issues advisers are struggling with when servicing SMSF clients were unchanged year on year, although the degree of their impact did experience a noticeable shift.
“The primary challenges nominated have not changed, being compliance and the paperwork and administration required to service SMSF clients, but one thing we did note with interest is that while they are still the main challenges they face, these factors have become much less prominent. So it has become much less of a challenge for them,” Investment Trends analyst Yigit Gunhan told selfmanagedsuper.
Specifically, 32 per cent of participants in 2024 said compliance remained the element that tested them the most when looking after SMSF members, whereas 45 per cent of respondents suggested this was the case in 2023.
There was an even bigger drop in the number of practitioners who believe paperwork and administration are the most stressful components when servicing SMSFs, with 49 per cent of advisers admitting this was so in 2023, but only 31 per cent doing the same this year.
Investment Trends gathered the information for its sector analysis from an online survey conducted during February and March, with responses from 652 accountants and 177 advisers being used.
