The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is in the process of finetuning the registration procedures for self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) brought in earlier this year, with a view to speeding up the rollover of member balances from Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) regulated funds into SMSFs.
"As part of bringing in the new registration system there was a lot of feedback, particularly from APRA-regulated funds, that they would like to be able to check and verify that a particular person was a member of a particular self-managed super fund," ATO assistant commissioner superannuation Stuart Forsyth said.
"From the end of October they will be able to do that," he said.
The new procedure will mean if the information held by the regulator in regard to a specific SMSF is proven to have an accuracy level of at least 93 per cent after ATO scrutiny, the APRA-regulated fund will be able to check if an individual really does belong to the SMSF in question.
At the moment, APRA-regulated funds only have access to Australian Business Numbers (ABNs) as a guideline, but cannot actually see who the members of the fund are.
Under the improved system, APRA-regulated funds will actually be able to verify if a person is a member of an SMSF instantly via their name and a date of birth, in conjunction with the ABN.
"We think this will speed up rollovers for the vast majority of people because the APRA fund shouldn't need trust deeds and some of the other things they have been asking for in recent times," Forsyth said.
