ATO says, message is getting through
An important change has occurred to Australian superannuation inflows, with a senior Australian Taxation Office (ATO) official revealing that in July this year personal contributions outstripped employer contributions for the first time ever.
It is understood that a major contributor to this change was the impact of the June 30 deadline attaching to the Government’s ‘simpler super’ legislation.
The Deputy Commissioner of Taxation responsible for superannuation, Raelene Vivian, told a Pensions and Investments Summit on the Gold Coast this week that the efforts of the Government and the industry were paying off, with record growth in contributions having been recorded in the July 2007 quarter.
“For the first time ever, (personal) contributions outstripped employer contributions,” she said.
However, just a day after the chief operating officer of the big retail industry fund REST, Paul Sayer, revealed that the fund was still seeking to match 400,000 tax file numbers to members of the fund, Vivian revealed that the ATO believed there were still TFNs outstanding for about 1.1 million accounts.
However, she said that while 1.1 million sounded like a large number, only about 250,000 of the affected accounts had a balance of over $1,000, and that would be the initial focus of the ATO’s activity.
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