Common sense has prevailed with the scrapping by Treasury of the proposed changes to require financial reporting of SMSFs to be completed 45 days prior to the SMSF Annual Return.

In our previous blog post, ‘proposing to move the goal posts for SMSF financials’ I wrote about the impact of these proposed measures and the problems that would confront both practitioners and auditors in meeting what appeared to be an arbitrary date for financial statement preparation, when trustees and professionals already had statutory reporting deadlines to work to.

What was being proposed?

This proposed amendment to the Regulations by inserting 8.02AA into the SISR 1994 is a notable omission from the Treasury Laws Amendment (Miscellaneous and Technical Amendments) Regulations 2020 that were registered on 14 December 2020.

Submissions made around this Treasury consultation were emphatic about not requiring any change to the current reporting regime for SMSFs.  Luckily, Treasury has taken on this feedback and not proceeded with the proposed measure.

That is great news for SMSF trustees and professionals alike!