Attribution managed investment trusts (AMITs) are required to report to the ATO and their members for each income year they are an AMIT.
Annual investment income report (AIIR)
An AMIT is required to lodge an Annual investment income report (AIIR) for each income year to the ATO, reporting attributions made to its members. The information the AMIT supplies in the AIIR will mirror the information provided to each member in the AMMA statement, which will include the information each member will need to complete their tax return.
Any entity that is an investment body must give an AIIR to the ATO for a financial year. If the entity has fewer than 10 investments of the kind that are subject to the tax file number (TFN) rules (Part VA investments), the entity may not be required to give the report to us.
However, in order to support the attribution method, a MIT (including an AMIT) must give an AIIR to us for a financial year, even where the total number of Part VA investments for which it was an investment body is fewer than 10. Requiring the AIIR in this way will alleviate the need for AMITs to provide member information in both the AMIT tax return and AIIR. The AIIR will become the primary source of information for us about the amounts attributed to members.
If the trustee reissues AMMA statements, they should also lodge an amended AIIR to ensure beneficiary data has been reported consistently.
See also:
Attribution MIT member annual statement (AMMA)
An AMIT is required to give an AMMA statement within three months of the end of the income year to each person who was a member during the income year.
The AMMA statement sets out the member's determined member components for the income year, and will provide all attribution, distribution and cost-base adjustment information to the member to allow them to fulfil their own income tax obligations. The objective of the AMMA statement is to ensure that the information provided by the trustee to a member is sufficient for that member to complete their income tax return.
The AMMA statement must contain certain information for the member, including:
- information that reflects the amount and character of each determined member component of the member
- the amount of the AMIT cost base net amount for the income year for the CGT asset that is the member’s unit or interest in the AMIT.
However, the trustee of an attribution MIT is not required to give an AMMA statement to a member if:
- all of the member’s determined member components for the income year are nil
- the member's AMIT cost base net amount for the income year is nil.
The AMMA statement can be reissued in later years by the trustee of the AMIT if they identify inaccuracies or amounts that should have been attributed to members in previous years. The revised AMMA statement replaces the previous AMMA statement provided. However, a revised AMMA statement must be given to the member no later than four years after the end of the income year to which the AMMA statement relates in order to be effective.
If the trustee reissues an AMMA statement, they should also amend the AIIR to ensure there are no discrepancies in beneficiary data.
AMIT tax return
MITs that elect to become attribution MITs (AMITs) must lodge a tax return that is specific to AMITs. MITs who have not chosen to be an AMIT will continue to use the trust income tax return. An AMIT tax return can only be lodged electronically.
The AMIT tax return and tax schedule is tailored to the AMIT regime and captures information relevant to AMITs to provide a streamlined lodgment. To help reduce the compliance burden, the AMIT tax return makes use of existing reporting channels for attribution information relating to members (other than foreign residents) by using information captured via the Annual Investment Income Report (AIIR).
The trustee of an AMIT is liable to pay income tax on certain amounts. The trustee may self-assess the following liabilities:
- trust component deficit of characters relating to tax offsets
- shortfall in determined member components of character relating to assessable income
- excess in determined member component of character relating to a tax offset
- determined trust components that are not reflected in member components.
Statement of attribution
The AMIT tax return includes a Statement of attribution, which operates to capture amounts on which the trustee will be assessed on foreign residents' determined member components.
The Statement of attribution must be completed by an AMIT that is not a withholding MIT for each foreign resident member attributed an amount on which the trustee is liable to pay tax.
A Statement of attribution does not need to be completed for a foreign resident member for which the trustee has no liability. A withholding MIT will not be required to complete this section.
See also:
AMIT tax schedule
The trustee will need to lodge at least one AMIT tax schedule with its AMIT tax return.
If the trustee has chosen to apply separate AMIT treatment for multiple classes within the trust, one AMIT tax schedule needs to be completed for each class.
Characters
The AMIT tax schedule requires trustees to show certain determined trust component calculations for each character – the amount that was used as the basis for attribution.
The characters are grouped by their relationship to:
- assessable income
- exempt income
- non-assessable non-exempt income (NANE)
- tax offsets.
All assessable income characters are aggregated into a single amount, other than those relating to capital gains, which must be aggregated separately.
Capital gains
Consistent with current reporting, information relating to capital gains tax (CGT) will be captured via the CGT Schedule on a separate class basis, where each class has a gross capital gain or loss of $10,000 or more. If there is a single class in the AMIT, the $10,000 threshold for a CGT schedule will apply to the AMIT as a whole.
Losses information
Where the trustee of a multi-class AMIT has made an election to treat each class as a separate AMIT, tax losses in one class cannot be used to offset income in another class. For these multi-class AMITs, losses will need to be identified separately for each class. This information will be captured on the AMIT tax schedule for each class.
This means that an AMIT will not be required to lodge a separate Losses schedule.
Other schedules
An AMIT may lodge additional informational schedules that are currently available to trusts, and include schedules for:
- capital gains tax (CGT)
- international dealings
- rental property
- payment summary.
Ceasing to be an AMIT
When a trust that was an AMIT ceases to be an AMIT for a later income year, it will no longer need to lodge an AMIT tax return and must instead lodge a trust tax return.
However, if the ex-AMIT discovers unders or overs within four years of the relevant base year (that is, the year to which the under or over relates), an AMIT tax schedule will need to be included with the trust tax return reporting only the unders or overs information.
An ex-AMIT that had elected multi-class treatment must aggregate all unders or overs information for its classes in the tax schedule, as the multi-class treatment does not apply once the ex-AMIT has ceased to be an AMIT.