Legislation was passed in June 2018 which resulted in ASIC’s fees reflecting the cost associated with the work undertaken by them. While around 90% of ASIC’s regulatory activities will be now be recovered in the form of industry funding levies, the remaining 10% will be recovered via fees for service.
We have noted when assisting AFSLs with their FS70 lodgement that no lodgement fees were payable because of this new regime. As all lodgements are now completed online this is logical given that the marginal cost to ASIC would be minimal.
Process for Payment of Levies
Each year, regulated entities will be required to provide ASIC with metrics for the previous financial year through the ASIC Regulatory Portal. ASIC will use this data to calculate each entity's share of the 2017–18 regulatory costs. They will issue industry funding invoices (the funding levies) for the 2017–18 financial year in January 2019.
Will costs Increase?
In terms of fees for service for AFSLs, the indication is that some regulatory fees will increase. For example, registering a company as an AFSL used to incur a fee of $1,643. The new fees range from $2,233 for an application online for low complexity products in the wholesale space, up to $7,537 for high complexity products with retail clients. Paper lodgements are more expensive again.
ASIC should be releasing information on annual levies this month. In March 2018 they released “indicative levies” which included the following for AFSLs.
|
Sector |
No in Industry |
Levy Basis |
Indicative levy |
|
Retail clients/relevant products |
2953 |
No of advisers |
$1,500 |
|
Retail clients/non-relevant products |
660 |
No of days authorised |
$719 |
|
General advice only |
983 |
Flat levy |
$2,058 |
|
Personal advice/wholesale only |
1466 |
Flat levy |
$596 |
More clarity on these levies should be published by ASIC shortly.
For more information please contact one of the team from SAAS Audit.
