SFWG minutes, March 2011

8. False or misleading statements

Beth Barry advised fund representatives of progress with the ATO practice statement covering false or misleading statements which do not result in a shortfall amount.

The draft practice statement will be released shortly, with the final version to issue in June 2011. The practice statement focuses on the application of the penalties across the ATO more broadly.

To assist superannuation funds and administrators with understanding the application of the practice statement to superannuation statements including reporting, further guidance material on False or misleading statements has been added to www.ato.gov.au in February 2011, targeting more specific superannuation circumstances.

Funds raised concerns about where to go with requests from members to change reporting where the fund does not consider the reporting should be changed:

the ATO advised the funds should not amend the reporting in these situations and referred to one of the example cases from the guidance material that penalties may apply
funds were reminded they have an obligation to report based on the evidence presented for each circumstance.

Beth Barry raised the option of the ATO providing further scenarios on www.ato.gov.au regarding potential penalties in these cases if it was seen to assist funds with explaining to their members why they could not re-report without additional evidence. Funds may choose to provide these examples to members to support the actions they are taking.

Funds were invited to review the existing guidance material and should there be other scenario's funds would like the ATO to consider including in the guidance material, escalate the detail to SFWGSecretariat@ato.gov.au

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Last Modified: Monday, 27 June 2011