Introduction
This article explains the process of lodging a 2016 or prior SMSF Annual Return in Class and explains the below issues:
- The fund tax agent does not have any existing ELS Credential. ATO has stopped issuing ELS credential.
- How can I confirm whether the 2016 or prior SMSF Annual Return Lodgment is successful?
The process has been changed by the ATO in its recent ELSTagFormat 0002.2021 Business Implementation Guide:
- Lodgment of 2016 or prior SMSF Annual Return will no longer be synchronous, i.e. you will not receive an ELS transmission or validation report from the ATO after the lodgment of the return.
- Class Software will only receive a message acknowledging receipt of the return.
- For the purpose of lodgment, the message receipt will be treated as receipt of lodgment for the agent’s records since there will be no validation report.
- It is no longer required for an agent to have an ELS approval number; any five-digit number can be used in the ebMS3 message. It is recommended that where an agent previously had an ELS number, they continue to use this number.
- Prior year lodgments will be accepted and processed by the ATO via the SBR channel without the need to identify an ELS approval number.
SMSF Annual Return's for FY 2016 or prior lodged between 1 February 2022 to 25 March 2022 on Class will not be processed by the ATO as the ELSTagFormat 0002.2021 service was unavailable. After 25 March 2022, you need to follow the steps below to complete the lodgment.
Issue 1:
The fund tax agent does not have any existing ELS Credential. ATO has stopped issuing ELS credential.
Solution:
To submit the Annual Return in Class, you will need to setup dummy ELS Credentials for the Tax Agent to enable lodgment in Class.
Navigate to Business Level> Business> Business Contacts
Click on Tax Agent, under the Role Tab, enter the ELS Credentials as follows: Key in the ELS Credentials as follow:
- ELS User ID: A followed by first 5 digits of Tax Agent Number (AXXXXX)
- ELS Password: Text character 16 digit (small cap, big cap mix) (AbCDeFghiJklmnop) - any combination
- ATO Access code 1: V followed by first 5 digits of Tax Agent Number (VXXXXX)
- ATO Access code 2: Mix of number and text characters all in small cap (10 digit) - any combination
Issue 2:
How can I confirm whether the 2016 or prior SMSF Annual Return Lodgment is successful?
Current Solution
The steps to confirm the lodgment of 2016 or prior SMSF Annual Return is the following:
- Lodge the 2016 or prior SMSF Annual Return in Class as per usual.
- Log on to Online Services for Agents (OSFA) to confirm the lodgment status from the ATO (This process may take up to 24 hours).
- If the return is successful, inform Class Support through Log a Support Request.
- Class Support can manually mark the return to be lodged successfully.
Future Development
Class is aware that the current solution is manual and cumbersome. We are working on a more scalable solution by allowing tax agents to call the following reporting services from the ATO:
- Lodgment List Report (LDGLST.0002.2016); or
- Lodgment Progress Report (LDGPROG.0001.2017)
While the reporting services will be an asynchronous / on-demand process, it will at least alleviate the need to contact the Class Support team to update the lodgment status of the return (i.e. avoiding steps 2-4 in the above solution).