Certain contributions received by a complying SMSF are included in its assessable income and are usually taxed as part of the SMSF's income at 15% (or 47% for non-complying SMSFs). These ‘assessable contributions’ include:
- employer contributions (including contributions made under a salary sacrifice arrangement)
- personal contributions that the member has notified you they intend to claim as a tax deduction
- generally any contribution made by anybody other than the member, with limited exceptions such as spouse contributions and government co-contributions.
No-TFN-quoted contributions
If the member has not quoted their TFN, you will have to pay additional tax on their mandated employer contributions and you cannot accept other types of contributions. The additional tax rate is 34% for complying SMSFs and 2% for non-complying SMSFs.
If you pay the additional tax and, at a later stage, your member gives you their TFN, you may be able to claim back the additional tax as a no-TFN tax offset in your SMSF annual return. You can only claim this offset within three years from the end of the financial year that the contributions subject to the additional tax were made.
If you have debited the amount of additional tax from your member’s account and you claim the tax offset in a later year, you need to re-credit this money to their account.
Certain contributions received by a complying SMSF are included in its assessable income and are usually taxed as part of the SMSF's income at 15%. These assessable contributions include employer contributions and personal contributions.