BGL Corporate Solutions, Australia’s leading developer of SMSF administration and ASIC corporate compliance software solutions, is proud of its achievement in getting the ATO to rethink its SMSF Events Based Reporting regime.
“We started our campaign in late July 2017 with a petition to the Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer and the ATO Commissioner Chris Jordan” says BGL Managing Director Ron Lesh. “We then met with the ATO in early August and voiced our concerns at the proposed reporting regime that seemed to have been signed off by not only the ATO but also by many of the professional organisations”.
BGL was concerned about 2 aspects of the proposed events based reporting regime. The first was the frequency and deadlines of reporting and the second was the need to report ALL SMSF member balances – whether the balance was $50,000 or $1.6m. “We thought this was big brother gone mad” noted Lesh.
“The first meeting with the ATO was organised with the SMSF Association. It was great to have their support throughout this campaign” added Lesh.
“BGL first became aware of the proposed reporting requirements early in 2017” said Lesh. “We had our concerns then, but expected the accounting industry associations to make representation to the ATO suggesting this was not a good idea. We did not however see much activity – with the exception of the work done by the Institute of Public Accountants. The others were nowhere to be found”.
“We started the campaign by asking our clients to sign our petition on causes.com. This was probably not as successful as I would have liked but it seemed to get the attention of the Assistant Treasurer. I would like to thank Ms O’Dwyer for her help in getting the ATO to rethink the events based reporting regime” Lesh said.
“When the ATO released its Position Paper in August 2017, it was great to see there had already been some change in the ATO position” stated Lesh. “It was really only then the other software suppliers and accounting industry associations decided to support our proposals. I was really disappointed in the way much of the industry handled this. Organisation members were not asked their views and accounting organisation bureaucrats were taking positions without any reference to members whose membership fees pay their salaries”.
“I would like thank the ATO for listening to our concerns” added Lesh.
“It has been a trying time for SMSF administrators with so much change over the past 18 months and little certainty as to what the future held. It is great we now have certainty around Events Based Reporting and our clients can get on with their work knowing what is coming and that BGL will always support them” concluded Lesh.
