If you think an assessment is wrong, an amendment can be requested.
Amending an assessment
Amendments can be initiated by us, or a provider or member can ask for an amendment.
An amendment may be needed if:
- a member's adjusted taxable income has changed – this may occur if the member's income tax assessment has been amended
- an amended Superannuation member contributions statement has been lodged because of a change in surchargeable contributions
- a TFN is provided after an assessment is issued, because we could not match the TFN initially provided with reported member information.
We send an amended assessment to the current holder of the contributions. This may be:
- the provider that received the original assessment
- a new provider
- the member.
If an assessment has been amended, one of two things may happen:
- If the contributions holder has paid too much surcharge, we may (depending on the circumstances) need to pay interest when we refund the overpaid surcharge.
- If the contributions holder has not paid enough surcharge, they may need to pay us a general interest charge as well as the additional surcharge.
A member should include any interest on overpayment of surcharge as assessable income for the financial year in which the interest is paid. If general interest charge applies, it is deductible in the financial year it is incurred.
Four-year time limit
All super providers need to be aware of the four-year time limit for surcharge assessments.
To ensure an amended assessment can be issued for a member, a provider must make amendments to reporting as soon as an error is detected. Subject to certain exceptions, we can only issue an amended surcharge assessment within four years of an assessment being issued. The time limit starts from the date the debit assessments are due, and from the date the credit assessments were issued.
Exceptions that will allow us to issue an amended surcharge assessment outside this four year period include:
- if there is fraud or evasion
- where there is a need to give effect to an appeal or review decision
- where there is a need to give effect to an objection decision to reduce the surcharge payable.
If you lodge an amended Superannuation member contributions statement more than four years after an assessment, it may not be accepted unless it meets one of the exceptions criteria.
Transferred contributions
Sometimes we send providers an assessment notice saying they hold a member's surchargeable contributions when this is no longer the case. If this happens, the super provider needs to let us know by lodging a Superannuation assessment variation advice statement. We will withdraw the assessment and send a new one to the current holder of the contributions.
The assessment variation advice statement needs to be sent to us no later than seven days after the surcharge assessment is due to be paid.
Objections
For information about how to lodge an objection to a surcharge assessment see Object to an ATO decision.