18 years later, ANAO to examine ATO’s SMSF regulation

It has been 18 years since the Auditor General last looked at the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO’s) regulation of self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) and the sector is welcoming the audit office taking another look.

And the basis of that welcome from the SMSF sector is the hope that the ATO will move to provide more specific guidance around SMSFs.

The SMSF Association chief executive, Peter Burgess has welcomed the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) conducting a performance audit of the ATO’s handling of SMSFs, claiming a fresh, balanced assessment is warranted.

“The ATO has a dual role with SMSFs in that it is both the regulator and the administrator of Australia’s tax and super laws. That dual mandate should translate into timely, practical, whole-of-sector guidance, especially where super and tax intersect,” Burgess said.

“Instead, trustees and professionals are too often left with non-binding ‘SMSF specific advice’ and slow, case-by-case private rulings – an approach that doesn’t deliver clarity at scale.”

In doing so, Burgess noted that it was not the first time the ANAO had traversed such issues, having in 2012 recommended that the ATO measure trustee satisfaction and improve access to SMSF guidance.

“We hope a new review will test what’s changed and whether the ATO’s current guidance model meets the needs of trustees and SMSF professionals,” he said.

The ANAO’s audit will also include a follow-up on employer compliance with Superannuation Guarantee requirements regarded as critical to the Payday Super regime which is due to begin on 1 July 2026.

The ANAO’s last performance audit of the ATO’s handling of the SMSF sector in 2007 very much reflected the relatively nascent nature of the self-managed superannuation at that time, noting that it had only been in June, the previous year, that the tax office became responsible for regulation 320,000 SMSFs.

According to the latest data, there are now 646,168 SMSFs in Australia covering nearly 1.2 million members.