The Australian Taxation Office (ATO), which celebrates its 20th anniversary as the regulator of self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs), has reported that the number of assets held by Australian in SMSFs has gone up by $695 billion over the last 20 years to close to $750 billion in retirement savings today.
By comparison, in 1999 there were about 200,000 SMSFs with 387,000 members and a total of $55 billion in assets, according to the figures from the ATO.
Today SMSFs comprise nearly one third of the $2.76 trillion total superannuation assets, with over 1.1 million Australian SMSF members across 600,000 funds, which means that over 200,000 new SMSFs are being established every year.
The regulator also said that its focus was on supporting trustees and preventing breaches occurring as well as protecting people’s retirement savings by addressing non-compliance in the sector.
As a result of this, the ATO reported that there was:
- The disqualification of some 3,500 SMSF trustees
- Around 2,400 enforceable undertakings being issued to trustees
- More than 600 SMSFs being made non-complying
- 145 SMSF approved auditors being referred to ASIC for further action
“The Association has enjoyed a productive relationship with the ATO over the past 20 years. We believe its approach to regulating the sector has been both supportive and collaborative of all parties, with the end result being that SMSF members have benefited by enjoying better retirements,” SMSF Association chief executive John Maroney said.
“To continue to protect the SMSF sector for the next 20 years and beyond, we’re using sophisticated data and intelligence to focus our compliance activities on key risks we’ve identified, such as the illegal early release of super.
“We know that our best success comes from working with SMSF trustees and advisors in a partnership with a common interest to ensure that SMSFs remain a key part of the superannuation sector.”
