This year is going to be an extraordinarily busy period. With substantial preparation and planning to be done, particularly for those clients with high super balances, many of the decisions to be made need to be assessed based on the individual members of the fund and their future plans and intentions.

A lack of awareness and knowledge about small Australian Prudential Regulation Authority funds (SAF) has been identified as the area that will result in many planners and dealer groups attracting the ire of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the ATO.

Cloud-based specialist SMSF document provider NowInfinity will be enhancing its compliance support for advisers with a new service to be launched in March.

SMSF trustees in non-bank limited recourse borrowing arrangements (LRBA) who are unable to repay their loan by the approaching 31 January deadline need to seek legal advice and should have already contacted the ATO to discuss their options.

The method SMSF trustees and members must follow to be able to claim a tax deduction for contributions is to be monitored and likely fine-tuned in the foreseeable future.

Compliance activities and associated punitive measures applied by the ATO over recent years have revealed the SMSF sector is in very good shape and with few problems.

SMSF compliance services provided by accountants are unlikely to drive and improve practice revenues as they do not present a unique business proposition, a strategic business consultant has said.

The ATO will concentrate on cases of serious non-compliance from SMSFs in the coming financial year.