28 November 2011
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Supercorp's self managed superannuation fund software superMate has teamed up with Bendzulla Actuarial to significantly speed up the delivery of actuarial certificates online.
The new streamlined process for ordering certificates, which relate to exempt pension income, will now take only a few seconds.
According to Bendzulla, advisers will benefit by getting a 2011 SMSF tax return/ documentation completed this year.
Actuarial certificates are needed to claim exemption from income tax where funds meet certain criteria.
This includes that the fund paid a pension to a member during the year, fund assets aren't fully segregated to individual member accounts, and one or more members had a non-zero accumulation account balance at some stage during the year.
"It is now easier than falling off a log and can take 2 to 3 seconds for an accountant to automatically have the tax-exempt percentage calculated by one of Australia's leading actuarial firms, and sent back to superMate to be used for end-of-year processing," said David Mendelovits, business development manager at Supercorp.
"The actual actuarial certificate is then sent to superMate following confirmation by the actuaries. The accountant no longer needs to stop work, wait for a certificate to arrive and then start again; work continues seamlessly.
"Advisers can get final tax return data in 2011 for a 2011 SMSF tax return which means that the SMSF tax return 'lag' which made figure rubbery for calculating pensions is no longer an issue."
Mendelovits also said there would be "no gaps and extra stages" in the new process.
"It is now about two secure websites talking to each other to get the tax exempt percentage and actuarial certificate out as quickly as possible."
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