Forgetting to take the minimum pension is one of the cardinal sins when it comes to operating your self managed super fund. This issue was highlighted within draft tax ruling, TR 2011/D3 where the Commissioner states that failure to meet the minimum will mean the fund is not entitled to tax exemption on the income … Continue reading »
The next few months starts a transformation for more than 12,000 SMSF auditors, with ASIC registration to open to become an Approved SMSF Auditor. This registration is mandatory for all SMSF auditors to continue to conduct self managed super fund audits post 1 July 2013. With about 50% of the SMSF auditors currently auditing 10 … Continue reading »
After only just discussing the regulatory focus by ASIC on SMSFs and property investments, we have seen further regulatory “alarm bells” ringing through the ATO’s release of taxpayer alert, TA 2012/7. A Taxpayer Alert is an “early warning” of significant new and emerging higher risk tax and superannuation planning issues or arrangements that the ATO … Continue reading »
I read with great interest recently in the Australian newspaper, an article titled “Setting up an SMSF to buy property a risky strategy” (13 November 2012) regarding ASIC commissioners Peter Kell and Greg Tanzer focusing a taskforce on aggressive marketing of speculative property developments with SMSF limited recourse borrowing arrangements. Whilst there appears to be a lot … Continue reading »
Join me for the next SMSF Quarterly Wrap webinar, where in this one hour session I will be discussing at the latest technical and regulatory issues impacting self managed super funds. The last quarter has been another busy one for SMSFs with changes announced from the Mid-Year Economic & Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO), in particular around … Continue reading »
I’m pretty passionate about defending the SMSF industry (maybe I’m biased), but it makes my blood boil when representatives from the ‘other side of the fence’ take a few cheap shots at self managed super funds with very little supported data (or none at all). I’m referring to an article I read in Money Management yesterday prepared … Continue reading »
The Mid-Year Economic & Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) released today has seen the Government announce a further increase to the SMSF Supervisory levy to $259 for the 2013-14 financial year. Having seen progressive increases in the supervisory levy since the introduction of the Simpler Super reforms from 1 July 2007, this jump represents the largest increase … Continue reading »
Financial distress can cloud an individual’s judgement and recent AAT case has highlighted that telling “porky pies” isn’t going to win any favours with the Commissioner of Taxation. The case of Sinclair and the Commissioner of Taxation was an appeal by the taxpayer as to the assessability of an illegal early release amount from BT rolled … Continue reading »
The ATO has recently updated its website with the latest statistics regarding excess contributions tax (ECT), which continues to show individuals predominantly getting caught with their concessional contribution (i.e. salary sacrifice arrangements). After a 314% increase in ECT notices in 2009-10, there has been a reduction again in 2010-11 to date, however it is significantly … Continue reading »
The ATO has published the June 2012 quarterly statistics on the self managed super fund market, with figures showing further growth in the sector with 7,197 new fund established for the quarter, taking the total number of SMSFs to 478,263. The average fund balance has grown to $917,895, with $439 billion of assets, the … Continue reading »