ASFA raises TFN issues

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) has raised some key issues with the Treasury over the use of tax file numbers (TFNs) in member identification.

The issues, raised in a submission, pointed out some of the fine detail in how the new TFN-based regime will work with respect to members with multiple accounts and the consolidation of accounts.

Under Regulation 6.49(1) (a) and (2) a trustee may use a TFN to locate in the records of the fund amounts held by a member. Consent to such activity is provided by virtue of the member having 'quoted their TFN for superannuation purposes'.

The ASFA submission pointed out that one outcome of the process could be the uncovering of situations where the same TFN had been quoted by multiple persons. "In such situations the fund would be obliged (under taxation law dealing with accurate and complete reporting of information) to resolve those cases and either determine the correct TFN or remove the TFN from the account record," it said.

It said this represented a significant change from the current (pre-1 January 2012) situation whereby the restrictions on the use of TFNs in Part 25A of SIS prevent a fund from undertaking such searches based on TFNs.

The submission also pointed to the fact the new regulations appeared to be silent on what form of member consent was required prior to undertaking a search on the expanded Australian Taxation Office superannuation facility.

It said ASFA had a strong preference that to gain the appropriate consent, funds should be able to use the method currently used in SuperMatch searches.

Under this arrangements, funds have to first advise those members to be included in the search process that they proposed to undertake the search.