The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has established a new service that will provide self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) trustees with product rulings.
The move has been in response to demand from SMSF trustees to make available to them a system for their needs that was similar to the binding income tax rulings issued to individual tax payers.
"After quite a lot of lobbying from a whole range of associations the government got onto the commissioner and he's now come out with these non-binding rulings and non-binding advice," ING Australia head of technical services Graeme Colley said.
"While they're not binding on the commissioner as they relate to self managed superannuation funds, they still are administratively valid. I'm sure that if you go ahead with the particular product, or go ahead with the advice, as the commissioners approved in those terms I'm sure you won't end up in an appeal with the commissioner about it," he said.
The specific rulings for SMSFs can involve anything to do with the Superannuation Industry Supervision (SIS) Act as well as taxation matters.
"What I see as being the main thing there is the investment standards. Substantial parts of our work with self managed super funds has to do with in-house assets - superannuation funds acquiring assets from the members or other parties, and we're currently looking at the uses of reserves in self managed super funds," Colley said.
"I think they're a good thing and I think they'll give more certainty in the operation of self managed superannuation funds," he said.
