SMSF Auditors – New Acronym, SANs

The Government proposes to require all auditors undertaking audits of SMSFs to be registered with ASIC.

To this end, the Government has released draft legislation relating to the registration of SMSF auditors for public comments.

It is proposed that SMSF trustees will be required to appoint only SMSF registered auditors and only SMSF registered auditors will be permitted to undertake audits of SMSFs.

As currently proposed, the start date will be 31 January 2013 with current SMSF auditors being provided with a five month period in which to be registered with ASIC.  From 1 July 2013 only ASIC registered SMSF auditors will be permitted to undertake the 2012/13 and subsequent years financial and compliance audits.

SMSF trustees will know whether a particular SMSF auditor is ASIC registered by reason of their SAN  -  which is an acronym for “SMSF auditor number”.