Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (ICAA) superannuation specialist Liz Westover has pointed to new regulations having been finalised requiring self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) trustees to report fund assets at market value in year-end reports.
Westover pointed to the processes which had been followed to arrive at the new regulations, pointing out that the original proposal under Stronger Super was for net market values to be used, mainly to bring SMSF reporting in line with those requirements for larger Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA)-regulated funds.
However, she said the ICAA had raised concerns with Treasury regarding such a move, using a submission to highlight that new accounting standards for superannuation entities were to be introduced that would result in APRA-regulated funds reporting at fair valuation.
Westover said that, effectively, a move to net market valuations for SMSFs would have created inconsistencies with APRA-regulated funds.
She said the ICAA had also encouraged market valuation to be used for consistency with other valuation requirements such as payment of pensions and holding in-house assets.
"As a result, the proposal for net market valuation was amended to market valuation – a sensible approach and one consistent with the Institute's recommendation in its submission to the Cooper panel during its review of the super system," Westover said.
She noted that the Australian Taxation Office had recently released a publication containing valuation guidelines for SMSFs.
