As the vote counting continues, we now know that the Coalition will lead a very small majority Government. The next challenge facing the Prime Minister is the intense lobbying that is expected around the superannuation measures announced on budget night. It is these changes that many believe were the reason behind the result on election day, in particular the retrospective nature of the $500,000 lifetime non-concessional contribution cap. The Government has already acknowledged a small number of ‘carve outs’ that will be required to deal with pre-existing contracts to acquire property and to meet the safe harbour requirements contained within PCG 2016/5. You can read the letter from the Treasurer to the SMSF Association here.
Any demand for change will find a Government looking to counter attack by arguing that any amendments must be revenue neutral to the budget forecasts. It is the Government’s view that it has a mandate to govern, so I suspect that they will confront head-on a unified superannuation industry (across the APRA and SMSF sectors) arguing strongly towards any new measures to only apply prospectively. I have no doubt that the measure in its current form be challenged substantially the Bill when introduced into Parliament works through both the house of representatives and senate.
The other ‘sore’ point in these measures was the reduction in the concessional contribution cap to $25,000, in particular those over 50 year of age who have traditionally worked to a higher amount given their proximity to retirement. Again, we will await to see how the Government looks to proceed.
It is important to note that in their final costings released before the election, the Labor Government effectively banked all of the Coalitions super measures announced on budget night. Therefore, one would have to believe that many of these changes will pass through including the introduction of a $1.6m balance transfer cap for post-retirement.
Over the coming months, we will continue to keep you up-to-date on all of the issues as they come to hand around the proposed super reforms.
Upcoming training
In this month’s webinar, Aaron is going to take an in-depth look at the issues around defining SMSFs. Whilst on face value the basic conditions to an SMSF are quite straight forward, in this session Aaron show you that sometimes things aren’t so basic! In particular, this session will focus on the circumstances where an alternate trustee may need to be appointed and the important condition that must be met in order to remain as a self-managed super fund.
The session will include for all attendees a copy of The SMSF Academy’s checklist that will help better understand the tips and traps when appointing a legal personal representative (LPR), enduring powers of attorney and much more.
Whilst on the topic of SMSF training, you can save the following dates for the remainder of our webinars training calendar for 2016:
- 20 July – Defining SMSFs
- 24 August – Tips & Traps of fund tax
- 21 September – Changing Face of SMSF
- 25 October – Topic TBC
- 22 November – Topic TBC
- 14 December – Changing Face of SMSF
BGL Product Update days
The SMSF Academy is once again a proud sponsor of the BGL Product Updates days being conducted around Australia in August. This year, Aaron will be chairing the #FIRMOFNOW panel discussion to discuss what practitioners need to be doing now to be a successful accounting firm.
Make sure you come by and visit our stand to get the ever-popular updated SMSF Key facts and figures mouse pad.
To find out more, visit the BGL Product Update day page, www.bglcorp.com/site/update-day-august-2016/
Campus platform
We are pleased to advise that from next week our partial commutation documents will be available (in beta) for gold and silver members to generate as part of your membership. All other members can purchase these documents for $220 (incl. GST).
To find out more about the launch of this new SMSF document within Campus, you can read our recent article published on the topic and watch the how-to video on generating the partial commutation documents.
In-progress
We have an ever-growing list of SMSF documents in the pipeline to add into our Campus platform. Over the course of the next couple of months, we expect to be launching the following documents:
- Adding a reversionary beneficiary to an account based pension;
- Member in-specie contribution
- Lump Sum payment; and
- In-house asset loan agreement
We will continue to obtain member feedback about the future direction of our document generation platform. This will include the ability to not only build compliant SMSF documents, but also also to create your own SMSF content marketing materials such as e-books, fact sheets and more. This can also extend to generating a range of SMSF administration and compliance letters, checklists to assist in dealing with your SMSF clients.
If you would like to find out more about these additional tools, you can contact us at info@thesmsfacademy.com.au to discuss further.
Class super integration
Having recently launched our Campus integration with BGL Simple Fund 360, we are now about to commence work on the integration with Class Super. This project is expected to take a few months to complete, but it will offer similar features allowing for users to connect their SMSF software to Campus to automatically populate form fields to efficiently and seamlessly generate fund documents.
We will be seeking a limited number of beta testers with the Class Super integration around September, so if you would like to register your interest, you can do so by contacting us @info@thesmsfacademy.com.au
Author: Aaron Dunn
Aaron is a well-known identity within the SMSF sector and is seen as a trusted source for professionals to learn more about SMSFs and the direction of the sector. Aaron's insights into both technical and practice-based issues within the SMSF industry sees him regularly sort out to participate as a key stakeholder across regulatory and policy issues.
As an SMSF specialist and CPA with more than 20 years experience, Aaron is the CEO and Co-founder of Smarter SMSF, a specialist business that provides technology-based solutions to educate, automate and simplify the complexities of SMSFs to accountants, financial advisers.
A lover of sport, in particular AFL football (Essendon) and athletics, Aaron was previously a nationally ranked high jumper having set a personal best jump of 2.14m.
