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There are undoubtedly more interesting and rewarding ways to spend your time, but no one said running your own self-managed super fund (SMSF) was going to be easy.
As a trustee of your fund there are two annual tasks that can’t be avoided. These are your legal compliance requirements to:
SMSF auditors conduct both a financial and compliance audit of your fund’s operations as part of their annual auditing process. The financial audit analyses all the fund’s financial statements, such as its balance sheet, income statement and member statement, based on Australian Auditing Standards. The compliance audit checks compliance with all superannuation legislation.
When both are done, your SMSF auditor must complete an independent auditor’s report document provided by the ATO. This report must then be given to trustees of the SMSF within 28 days of the auditor receiving all relevant documentation.
If there have been any breaches (contraventions) of super legislation revealed in the compliance audit, auditors must report them to the ATO within 28 days using an ATO-provided contravention report document.
Our free calendar includes due dates for important documents plus suggested dates for trustee meetings and other strategic issues for your SMSF.
If you don’t use an accountant to prepare your SMSF financial statements, this article contains tips for:
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Barbara is a financial journalist and author with over 30 years’ experience in Australia and the UK. She is a contributor to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Money section, and has worked for the Australian Financial Review and The Australian.
Barbara is the author of Alan Kohler’s Eureka Report Guide to Personal Investing, Sorting Out Your Finances for Dummies and Personal Finance for Dummies and co-author of Investing for Dummies with James Kirby.
