ATO Penalty Changes from 1 July 2014 for SMSF breaches

From 1 July 2014, a legislative change will allow the ATO to apply a broader range of penalties and directions for SMSF breaches.

These penalties will be imposed on each trustee.

As an example, for an SMSF with four individual trustees, the ATO will impose a penalty on each trustee.

For an SMSF with a corporate trustee, the penalty will only be imposed once.

Therefore, an SMSF may pay up to 4 times the penalties of an SMSF with a corporate trustee. It may be worth considering a corporate trustee for your fund.