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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
When a Tasmanian fund holds part of the family business, the premises it trades from or a loan to a relative, the auditor needs more than a number carried forward. We provide dated, reasoned market values for those assets, written for the trustees and for the auditor who has to sign off on them.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
Hobart SMSF trustees must show the auditor a supportable market value at 30 June for every fund asset. Listed investments price themselves; private company shares, related trust units, premises leased to the members' business and loans do not. For those, a dated valuation from someone with no stake in the fund is the evidence auditors and the ATO expect.
Every year the fund's auditor gives two opinions, one on the financial statements and one on compliance with superannuation law, and asset values sit underneath both. Listed shares and a term deposit can be checked against a statement. A slice of the members' own business cannot, so the auditor has to judge whether the amount in the accounts is a market value or a hopeful estimate, and it is the trustees who must show which.
Tasmanian funds tend to hold a familiar set of hard-to-value assets. It might be a workshop in Moonah or Glenorchy leased to the members' engineering company, land and cool stores in the Huon Valley let to the family's orchard business, or consulting rooms in the Hobart CBD near the Royal Hobart Hospital leased to the members' practice. Add a minority stake in a Hobart accounting firm, units in a related trust that owns shops at Rosny Park, or a loan to a relative's company, and each one needs a method, evidence and a valuation date that fits the reason the figure is wanted.
The figure does more than fill a line in the accounts. It feeds each member's total superannuation balance, which affects contribution caps and Division 296; it fixes the transfer balance credit and that year's minimum payment when a retirement phase pension begins; and it drives the in-house asset test and its 5 per cent limit. A related-party price that is not a market price can also bring in the non-arm's length income rules, which can tax the affected income at the highest marginal rate.
We value the unlisted assets auditors query most often, dated to whatever event calls for the figure, and we work with trustees across Hobart and the rest of Tasmania by video call and phone. The trustees decide, your accountant prepares the accounts and the auditor applies the law; our part is a reasoned number each of them can rely on.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Under regulation 8.02B of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994, an SMSF's financial statements must carry its assets at market value. The ATO's valuation guidance asks for evidence that is objective and supportable, prepared by someone with the relevant skills and updated when circumstances change. A full formal valuation is not needed for every asset every year: between valuations, a documented review showing that nothing material has changed can be enough.
A fund may acquire only certain assets from a related party, business real property among them, and only at market value; any disposal to a related party must also be at arm's length. Moving the members' workshop into the fund, or selling family company shares out of it, therefore needs a value dated to the transaction. On a property transfer the State Revenue Office of Tasmania may also need to consider duty under the Duties Act 2001 (Tas), so one set of evidence can serve both purposes.
The annual accounts show each asset at its market value on the last day of the financial year. A figure rolled forward with no sign of review draws questions, and an auditor who cannot get comfortable with a material asset must qualify the audit report and may have to report the matter to the ATO.
Rollovers and benefit payments, a shift between accumulation and retirement phase, winding up the fund, and any event that could change a value materially between balance dates: an anchor tenant leaving a suburban shopping centre, the investee company losing a major contract, a slow tourism season cutting the earnings of a hospitality business the fund holds, or the death of a member.
The value of fund assets on the commencement day sets the member's transfer balance credit and the base for that year's minimum payment. Neither is easy to unwind once reported, so any unlisted asset supporting the pension should be valued as at that day.
Division 296 adds a tax on earnings linked to the part of a member's total superannuation balance above its threshold, with 30 June 2026 as the first measurement date. A fund that held property, private company shares or unlisted units on that date needs a market value for each as at 30 June 2026, whether or not one was obtained at the time. A valuation prepared now can speak to that date, relying only on what was known or reasonably knowable then, and the same figure may matter again if the fund's adviser recommends resetting asset cost bases to their 30 June 2026 values. The thresholds, rates and any elections are for your adviser to confirm member by member; the values are ours.
Before looking at the number, an auditor asks whether the method fits the asset, and our reports answer that first. For a company holding only cash and listed securities, net assets give a fair answer. For a trading company they understate value, because the balance sheet leaves out the goodwill a buyer would pay for.
Private company shares and trading trust units are valued with the income approach: normalised maintainable earnings capitalised at a rate that reflects the risk, tested against sales evidence, with net assets as the floor. Where the fund's holding falls short of control, the report weighs whether the shareholders agreement, the dividend record and the other facts justify a discount for lack of control or marketability, and says why. A discount applied by default fails review as surely as one that is ignored.
Business real property leased to the members' business needs a capital value and a market rent, and the rent is the figure most often left without support. Leasing evidence from Hobart's northern suburbs and Cambridge, and for medical suites in the Hobart CBD, is usually enough to test it, although in a market the size of Hobart's we may need to draw on a wider area or a longer period, and the report says so; a qualified property valuer's report supports the capital value where it is material. Related unit trust units are valued with the trust's underlying property at the same date, checking that the trust still meets the conditions that keep the units outside the in-house asset limit. Loans are valued on how far the borrower can repay, what security is held and whether the terms are commercial, and collectables follow their own regulation, including the need for a qualified independent valuer when one is sold to a related party.
Each of these can lead to a qualified audit or a contravention report, and none of them needs to happen if the method and the date are right from the start.
Most SMSF valuations have one main reader, the fund's auditor, with the ATO in the background. For that reader a certified Summary report is usually enough, because it shows the method, the evidence and the reasoning on its face. The extra depth of a Detailed report earns its place when a related-party deal is large, a pension is starting on a major unlisted asset, or a member's Division 296 balance at 30 June 2026 hinges on the value.
An auditor should be able to follow the report from start to finish without ringing us, although we are glad to take the call. It names the trigger, the valuation date, the standard of value and the documents relied on, and then values each asset by the method that suits it. Earnings-based values come with the normalisation schedule and capitalisation rate behind them, and premises come with their sales and rental evidence presented together.
The signing valuer is a certified valuer with no stake in the fund, its members or the entities being valued, and remains available to the auditor, and to the ATO if the fund is reviewed. Independence is much of what an auditor is relying on, which is why a short note from the fund's own accountant rarely closes a query. Should the same asset be contested later, for instance in a claim under the Testator's Family Maintenance Act 1912 (Tas) or a shareholder dispute before the Supreme Court of Tasmania, the same valuer can explain how the figure was built.
Look down the fund's asset list for the biggest item that has no market price. Ask who set its value, when, and on what evidence. If the answers are the members, some years ago and last year's accounts, that is the asset to have valued first.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.