SMSFs: How to deal with lost paperwork

Let’s face it, we have all lost our purse or wallet at one time or another and know the hassle it can cause.

Having to contact our bank to cancel and reissue our cards, going through the dramas around getting a new driver’s licence or even just remembering what we had stored in there in the first place.

But what happens if you lose any of the important documents or paperwork for your self-managed super fund? What happens then? Who do you contact? What needs to be done?

There may not be an easy solution in all cases, but in this article we will show you what you need to consider and what steps you may need to take.

Record-keeping obligations

There are strict legal requirements around the need for SMSF trustees to keep certain records that relate to their fund. The timeframe for maintaining these records depends on the type of documentation.

For instance, the funds accounting records, evidence of transactions, copies of the annual return and transfer balance reports need to be kept for a minimum of five years.

Whereas more permanent documents including trustee declarations, trustee consents and minutes of the trustee meetings that take place all need to be kept for at least ten years.

Other documents, like your SMSF trust deed, will need to be held onto for the life of your fund. It is also important that you maintain prior versions of your trust deed so that an ‘evidence chain’ is maintained.

We will talk more about trust deeds shortly.

Failing to maintain the appropriate documentation for the required timeframe can lead to compliance breaches and would usually require the fund’s auditor to lodge an audit contravention report with the ATO.

It is therefore important that where documents have been misplaced, that appropriate measures are taken. Those measures or actions are often dictated by what documents have been lost.

The most common documents that are reported lost include pension documentation, accounting or financial records and the fund’s Trust Deed.

Where to start