The SMSF Professionals Association of Australia (SPAA) will launch a dedicated technical advice service for its members next month, according to the association’s head of technical standards.
This will be structured as an online portal, described as a “mentoring program” by Graeme Colley, SPAA’s director of technical and professional standards.
“Members who are part of this will get access to the portal, they’ll put a question on there for us to handle, and we’ll have their answer available for them. The plan at the moment is [to respond] within 24 hours,” he says.
The need for the new online portal has been spurred by growing member demand for technical SMSF information. Colley estimates SPAA currently fields upwards of 10 to 15 “reasonably complex” technical inquiries on a variety of SMSF topics from their members each week.
He expects this number to grow to 20 or 30 once the program’s first stage is implemented. “Quite a number of questions are on limited recourse borrowing arrangements and how they should operated,” Colley says.
Small firms, tax issues dominate
Queries relating to stamp duty on property are also commonly received, especially those relating to state-based differences, “but we only answer the income tax and super questions we get.”
He explains those questions that fall outside SPAA’s direct purview are informally referred onto the relevant professional organisations.
“Most of the questions at the moment come from small financial planners and individual accountants who want some access to research and help on questions.
“We don’t expect it to come from the bigger groups, because they’ve got their own technical backup,” Colley adds.
Staggered roll-out
The service is expected to be implemented from the end of September, when a pilot program involving around 100 advisers – including financial planners, accountants and other professionals dealing with SMSFs – will launch.
These will not be formally selected by SPAA, but will instead consist of “those that put up their hand,” Colley says.
“We will leave it up to members to see where the demand comes from…and this is sometimes surprising.
“It could be other technical gurus around the place wanting answers, or at the other end of the spectrum, from those who are new to the industry,” he adds.
After an as-yet-undecided period of time, access to the portal will be rolled out to the broader SPAA member base of some 1,500 people.
“The board wants it offered to SPAA members only – they’ve got their membership fees in with us, and we think that’s the right way to go to start with,” Colley says, without explicitly ruling out expanding the scope later.
“Whether we expand it to those outside SPAA, that’s not on the cards at the moment.”
