We’ve had a fantastic first week with the SMSF Day events in both Sydney and Melbourne. The feedback has been fantastic in the value provided to attendees. As we head to Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth for the SMSF Day events this week, we will continue to add photos from these days to The SMSF Academy’s Facebook page.
For those of you who are unable to attend an SMSF Day, we recorded the Melbourne event and will be making it available online as a course within our Campus platform. The course will consist of:
- 4 x one hour presentations at the SMSF Day, including slides;
- Access to case studies for completion this includes video and written answers identifying key issues and strategies from the case study;
- Access to bonus materials including SMSF checklists; and
- Short assessment (multiple choice) for CPD points to be issued
You can take advantage of our SMSF Day event special until this Friday, 15 May to save $100 off the price of the online course. Use the coupon code ‘online‘ and register now.
The SMSF Day course will be available from Monday, 2 May 2016.
SMSF Tax Planning webinar
Immediately following the SMSF Day events, we will be holding what has become the most popular webinar each year, SMSF Tax Planning. In this 90 minute session, Aaron shares his tips, traps and strategies for your SMSF clients in the lead up to 30 June. For all attendees, a bonus SMSF Tax Planning checklist will be provided which has more than 20 pages valuable ideas to understand and implement before the end of the financial year.
For more details, visit the SMSF Tax Planning event page
Campus update
We continue to make significant advances with developments within our Campus platform. Most importantly we have moved to public-beta with our Simple Fund 360 integration. This is a significant milestone for us as it allows professionals to seamlessly push data from their Simple Fund 360 software to automatically populate orders including trust deeds, limited recourse borrowing LRBAs, pensions and more.
In times where driving efficiency within your practice is becoming paramount, we have also introduced the ability to select from previously order companies within Campus. This is initially available within a couple of order forms (to be expanded) but will allow you to save time to auto populating a form where an existing company ordered through Campus acts as the trustee of a SMSF or bare trust.
In addition, following feedback from our various membership levels, we are pleased to announce the roll out of a PAYG option for our SMSF legal, tax and compliance documents. Previously only available under our gold and silver membership options, the PAYG option allows for all members to access our growing suite of SMSF documents to purchase on an individual basis, in addition to our unlimited membership model.
You can read our recent article on the launch of the PAYG documents with Campus
SMSF documents recently added to Campus:
- TRIS Reg. 995-1.03 election form
SMSF documents to be available by end of April 2016:
- Contribution reserving – concessional
- Pension Rollback to Accumulation
Latest technical update
Last week saw the ATO finally release ‘safe harbour’ guidance for non-bank SMSF loans (i.e. related party) to comply with commercial lending terms by 30 June 2016. You can read more on this topic in Aaron’s latest blog post, time for LRBA’s to swim between the flags.
We all continue to wait patiently on the Government’s proposed changes to superannuation in this year’s Federal Budget to be held on May 3. We know that changes are ahead, in particular when it comes to contributions, with a likely cap reduction appearing most likely, rather than any significant tax reform on contributions that have been previously mooted.
In this backdrop of proposed changes to superannuation, the Government is also looking to enshrine the objective of superannuation, following a recommendation made in the Financial System’s Inquiry. This recommendation was subsequently accepted by Government, which outlined the primary objective to be:
To provide income in retirement to substitute or supplement the Age Pension
The ATO has recently published updated superannuation key rates and thresholds for the 2016-17 financial year. You can access these here, https://www.ato.gov.au/rates/key-superannuation-rates-and-thresholds/
Finally, as we head to 30 June, trustees with collectables and personal use assets acquired pre-1 July 2011 must ensure that they have complied with the post-1 July 2011 rules. The ATO published a reminder on their website last month as a reminder to ensure that trustees comply with these rules, https://www.ato.gov.au/Tax-professionals/Newsroom/Superannuation/Collectables—time-is-running-out!/
