TBAR changes are coming

Lyn Formica

Head of Education & Content

Late last year, the ATO announced they were reviewing the current deadlines for lodging TBARs with a view to moving to a single reporting framework. The ATO has now made their decision.

From 1 July 2023, the TBAR reporting for all SMSFs will be streamlined – all SMSFs will be required to report transfer balance account events no later than 28 days after the end of the quarter in which the event occurred.

This means that, from 1 July 2023:

an individual’s total super balance will no longer be relevant in determining the reporting deadline, and
there will no longer be an “annual reporter” option.

Importantly, TBARs are still only required when a member has an event which affects their transfer balance account (eg the commencement of a retirement phase pension) and there have been no changes to the type of events which must be reported. For many SMSFs, the members will have only one or two TBAR events in their lifetime.

And don’t forget - sometimes an SMSF should be lodging their TBARs even earlier than 28 days after the end of the quarter.

Take the example of Paul. He was drawing an account based pension from his SMSF but recently made the decision to wind up his SMSF, rollover his benefits to an industry fund and commence a new pension in the industry fund. The commutation of Paul’s pension in the SMSF and the rollover to the industry fund happened on 28 June. Paul plans to start his pension in the industry fund in the next day or so. The industry fund has different reporting requirements to an SMSF and must report the start of Paul’s pension within 10 business days. If the SMSF doesn’t lodge their TBAR to report the commutation of Paul’s pension until 28 July, Paul’s pensions will be double-counted and may cause him (and the ATO) to think he has exceeded his transfer balance cap.

Now that decision to streamline TBAR reporting has been made, maybe the next step in improving the process could be considering the suggestions Meg made in her earlier blog.

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