What is the Speeding Ticket Legislation?

This legislation applies to SMSFs and allows remediation directions and administrative penalties to be imposed on trustees of SMSFs.

The Commissioner of Taxation, as regulator of SMSFs, will have the power to issue remediation directions and administrative penalties.

A remediation direction can be of two types:

• a rectification direction – which is a direction that the trustee undertake action to rectify a compliance breach; and
• an educational direction – which is a direction that a trustee undertake a prescribed educational cause.

The legislation also permits the imposition of administrative penalties where trustees breach a SIS prescribed standard or fail to prepare the required financial statements in respect of the SMSF.

Remediation and administrative penalties cannot be avoided by causing the fund to not satisfy the definition of “self managed superannuation fund”.  The expedient of adding an additional trustee (thereby causing the fund to cease to satisfy the definition of SMSF) will not preclude the ATO from issuing either types of orders.

The boring legal bits – the Speeding Ticket legislation is set out in Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No 1) Act 2014.