Category: Feature Archives

Superannuation, in many ways, is our vehicle leading to a decent post-retirement life. We have this fleeting vision of life, so we often tend to disbelieve in the distant future; but surprisingly, it arrives one day. We actually grow old and retire, and it is then that Superannuation fund comes to our rescue; if we have paid some emphasis on it during the course of our working lives that is. Let us first define superannuation and explain the importance of Super fund.

The definition of what constitutes an SMSF contravention is all set to change in the light of the new penalty regime of the ATO. July 1 will alter the chapters of contravention thresholds, but there is no reason to panic as the auditors are registered with the commonwealth agency and they can be trusted.

ATO’s Taxation Determination 2014/7 came out on  9 April and was called “Income Tax:  in what circumstances is a bank account of a complying superannuation fund a segregated current pension asset under section 295-385 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) (‘ITAA’)?”. In the light of the ATO’s directive, let us find out what situations does the statement “an asset can be segregated on the whole but not in parts” sound workable in.

The Inspector-General of Taxation’s (IGT) review of the ATO penalties brought various recommendations to the surface. This was announced by the Finance Minister Matheas Cormann in his release. Ali Noroozi, the Inspector-general of taxation, felt that various improvements could be made to the ATO penalties in order to tackle stakeholder concerns better and iron out the overall penalty process.