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ATO relief for SMSFs reporting 'transfer balance account' events

The ATO has announced that, from 1 July 2018, SMSF event-based reporting regards events impacting a member's transfer balance account (i.e., via a Transfer Balance Account Report) will be limited to SMSFs with members with total superannuation balances of $1 million or more.

This reporting is only required if an event that impacts a member's transfer balance account actually occurs (e.g., such as starting an account based pension, or commuting such a pension). This effectively means that up to 85% of the SMSF population will not be required to undertake any additional reporting with respect to a members transfer balance cap, outside of current time frames (as SMSFs with members with account balances below $1 million can choose to simply report events which impact their members' transfer balances when the fund lodges its SMSF annual return).

However, from 1 July 2018, SMSFs that have members with total superannuation account balances of $1 million or more will be required to report any events impacting members' transfer balance accounts within 28 days after the end of the quarter in which the event occurs.

Whilst SMSFs are not required to report anything to the ATO until 1 July 2018, SMSF trustees should be mindful that, where the $1.6 million transfer balance cap has been breached in respect of a member from 1 July 2017, any resulting tax liability will continue to accrue until the excess amount is commuted (i.e., irrespective of when reporting that breach is required).