The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is to be given the responsibility to distribute superannuation funds from inactive accounts under new laws to be passed next year.
The move was among recommendations made by the Productivity Commission in its Superannuation: Assessing Efficiency and Competitiveness report.
Assistant Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and Financial Technology, Senator Jane Hume said legislation would be introduced into Parliament early next year to permit eligible rollover fund (ERF) trustees to voluntarily transfer any amount to the ATO.
“The legislation will also require [ERFs] to transfer all accounts below $6,000 by 30 June 2020 and to transfer any remaining accounts still residing in an ERF to the ATO by 30 June 2021,” Senator Hume said.
She said ERFs were currently subject to the Protecting Your Super reforms, which required them to transfer inactive low balance accounts to the ATO, but prevented them from voluntarily transferring other smaller amounts.
“By reuniting these lost accounts with their rightful owners, members will benefit from higher account balances and no longer be paying multiple sets of fees,” Senator Hume said.
She said the ATO’s data matching program had generated results exceeding those previously achieved by ERFs, which house millions of inactive and forgotten superannuation accounts.
“These changes are another step forward in addressing the issue of unnecessary duplicate accounts in the superannuation system,” she said.
