The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) chalks up 20 years of regulating self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) this year, declaring it takes its role as regulator “very seriously”.
Assistant Taxation Commissioner, Dana Fleming said that since the ATO began regulating the sector it had grown considerably, now housing 600,000 funds with more than 20,000 new SMSFs being established every year.
“In 1999, there were about 200,000 SMSFs with 387,000 members, and a total of $55 billion in assets,” Ms Fleming said.
“Today, SMSFs comprise nearly one third of the $2.76 trillion total superannuation assets.
“The importance of good governance of the sector cannot be underestimated.”
Shye said that as the sole regulator of SMSFs the ATO was conscious of the significant responsibility of safeguarding 1.1 million Australians’ retirement savings.
She said that for the past 20 years ATO’s SMSF regulating role had involved facilitating, monitoring and regulating trustees who had made the choice to undertake the important duty and obligation of managing their own retirement savings.
“While the ATO’s focus is on supporting trustees and preventing breaches occurring in the first instance, the ATO also aims to protect people’s retirement savings by addressing non-compliance in the sector,” Ms Fleming said.
She said compliance activities over the past 20 years had resulted in the disqualification of some 3,500 SMSF trustees; around 2,400 enforceable undertakings being issued to trustees; and more than 600 SMSFs being made non-complying.
She said that around 145 SMSF-approved auditors had also been referred to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for further action.
“To continue to protect the SMSF sector for the next 20 years and beyond, we’re using sophisticated data and intelligence to focus our compliance activities on key risks we’ve identified, such as the illegal early release of super,” she said.
“We know that our best success comes from working with SMSF trustees and advisors in a partnership with a common interest to ensure that SMSFs remain a key part of the superannuation sector.”