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3 minute read
News
Labor to champion bigger role for super
Director ID request a one-off
By Darin Tyson-Chan
The Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones has revealed Labor’s intention to have superannuation play a larger role in Australian society should it win the federal election this year.
Speaking at a recent industry function, Jones told attendees: “We think we can be deploying superannuation funds in the interest of the members who own the funds, but also in the national interest.
“We think government has a role to play, there is plenty of capital around, but the government doesn’t have to be putting its own [money] up and shouldn’t.
“But we do have an important role to play in ensuring that, particularly in the infrastructure sector, there is still flow ensuring that we have the capacity in certain strategic markets. We’d be one of the only countries in the world that wasn’t doing it if we let this opportunity go by.
“So we think there is an important role in government working with industry to create investment opportunities, not with taxpayers’ money, in ensuring the national interest and the interests of the owners of those superannuation funds.”
However, he pointed out Labor was not in favour of imposing any dictate on exactly how people’s retirement savings should be spent.
To this end, he criticised the Your Future, Your Super legislation for containing an element of this exact nature.
“The directions power that was included in the Your Future, Your Super legislation, can you imagine if Labor did that? Included within a bill the power to direct a bank and insurance company and a superannuation fund how it could or couldn’t invest its funds. Forced divestment,” he said.
“This is just capricious. It’s Stephen Jones
ideological, it’s ill-conceived and it’s got to stop.”
To this end, he called for greater transparency in the formulation of legislation, which should include greater engagement with the financial services and superannuation industry.
By Darin Tyson-Chan
Directors of a corporate SMSF trustee will only be required to apply for their mandatory director identification number once, regardless of when this company protocol is actually used.
Under amendments made to the Corporations Act, company directors, including individuals holding office in an SMSF corporate trustee, must acquire a director ID number.
The rules came into play on 1 November 2021 and stipulate existing company directors must apply for an ID number before 1 December 2022, individuals appointed to a directorship between 1 November 2021 and 4 April 2022 need to apply for an ID number within 28 days of their appointment, with people intending to be directors having to apply for an ID number before being appointed from 5 April 2022.
The legislation covers enduring powers ATO confirms ID process.
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of attorney, and applications for director IDs can be made prospectively. However, under the act the ID can be cancelled if not used or made active within 12 months of receipt, which has led to concern as to whether multiple applications will be needed in some cases.
In a recent discussion with the SMSF Association, the ATO confirmed individuals will not need to request a director ID number more than once.
When asked by SMSF Association technical manager Mary Simmons whether eligible individuals will be able to simply reinstate their cancelled director IDs, ATO SMSF industrial liaison, policy and governance senior director Martin Frauenfelder answered in the affirmative.
“[It will be] relatively easy. To reactivate a director ID the person just needs to follow the same process as when they applied for the first time,” Frauenfelder noted.
Simmons acknowledged how valuable this detail of the legislation is for SMSFs.
“For the SMSF sector it’s particularly important when you’ve got alternate or successor trustees in place to deal with the death or incapacity of a trustee,” she noted.