Are Transition to Retirement Pensions Still Useful?

Following the loss of tax concessions on fund earnings underpinning TRISs their popularity plummeted but they still have their uses. Quite apart from providing pre-retirement income, which is their actual purpose, they can also be useful in quarantining tax...

Recontribution Strategy Revisited

At the risk of appearing mundane, this week’s comment is on the well-established recontribution strategy. Its primary purpose is to reduce a member’s taxable component, thus reducing the tax payable by non-tax dependants on the member’s death. It can also be useful in...

Make the Changes!

SMSFs are held to high standards of compliance with the sole purpose test and provisions to deal with conflicts of interest encompassing all aspects of related party dealings. Today’s article in Investor Daily clearly indicates that APRA funds are not treated...

Reversionary Pension Nuances

There is often some confusion about the way a reversionary pension is treated relative to various caps and trigger points in the legislation. A reversionary pension continues to be paid to the reversionary beneficiary from the date of death. The pension does not stop....

Calculating the $3M Tax

The Div 296 tax bill has now passed the House of representatives. Its passage through the Senate is not guaranteed so fingers crossed. Anyhow, we have become aware that there is a lack of understanding about how this tax would be calculated so we thought it useful to...

$3M Cap Tax Gambit – Where are we at?

This Bill’s process is inching forward but there is still much that is required before it becomes law. The SMSF Association sponsored amendment – indexing the $3m cap – has been voted down in the House of Representatives. This is not surprising as...