Prior to 1 July 2012, you, as an SMSF trustee, could provide a valuation for SMSF assets every three years. However, you are now required to annually report the market value of assets with evidence to support the valuation.
Who should conduct the valuation?
Up-to-date asset valuations are critical to members of an SMSF as firstly, it is a legal requirement for you to value your assets each year. This helps to accurately calculate your member balances, which assists with, for example, determining your eligibility to different contribution thresholds or for calculating your minimum pension payment requirements from an account-based pension.
An up-to-date market valuation will also be required where there is a related party transaction of property in or out of the SMSF to ensure it is completed at arm’s-length to avoid any issues around non-arm’s length income (NALI) or non-arm’s length expenditure (NALE) as per the recent ATO guidelines.