This week’s Super Alert notes the ATO’s alert on high-volume PYS transactions, the passage of a superannuation SG Bill through Parliament, and the OAIC’s release of draft guidelines for the Consumer Data Right.
OAIC releases draft privacy guidelines for Consumer Data Right
On 17 October 2019, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) released for public consultation draft Privacy Safeguard Guidelines (Draft Guidelines) in relation to the Consumer Data Right framework. The Consumer Data Right framework in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Consumer Data Right) Act 2019 currently applies only to the banking industry (known as ‘Open Banking’) and will be rolled out to other sectors such as the superannuation industry in future.
Submissions on the Draft Guidelines close on 20 November 2019 and the OAIC will publish the final guidelines on 16 December 2019.
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ATO alert on high-volume PYS transactions
On 22 October 2019, the ATO issued news alert CRT 052/2019 ‘Protecting Your Super – proactive consolidation and allocation to member accounts’. According to the ATO, next month it will ‘begin proactively consolidating inactive low-balance accounts and ATO-held unclaimed super money (USM) with interest to an individual’s active accounts’.
The ATO is aware that this high volume of transactions between 1 November 2019 and 31 December 2019 will affect the ability of some funds ‘to allocate the amount to a member’s account within three days as required by regulation 6.34D of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994‘.
Accordingly, if a trustee can ‘demonstrate that despite taking every reasonable action, non-compliance was unavoidable’, then APRA and the ATO have agreed that ‘the prospect of action against an RSE licensee would be remote’.
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Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Tax Integrity and Other Measures No. 1) Bill 2019 passed by both Houses
On 22 October 2019, the House of Representatives agreed to the Senate amendments to the Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Tax Integrity and Other Measures No. 1) Bill 2019 (referred to in our Super Alert of 18 October 2019). The Bill now awaits Royal Assent.
As noted in our Super Alert of 13 September 2019, one of the objectives of this Bill is to amend the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) to ‘ensure that an individual’s salary sacrifice contributions cannot be used to reduce an employer’s minimum superannuation guarantee contributions’.
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ATO issues reminder in relation to inactive low-balance account reporting
On 23 October 2019, the ATO issued a reminder in relation to ‘inactive low-balance account reporting for 31 October 2019’ to help APRA-regulated superannuation funds meet their reporting obligations. Among other things, the ATO reminds trustees to use ‘unclaimed super money (USM) reason code ‘P’ to report both inactive low- balance accounts (ILBA) and insoluble lost accounts via SuperStream rollover messaging’.
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This article was written by Natalie Cambrell, Partner, Sanela Osmanovic, Associate and Joseph Cheung, Solicitor.