SUPERCentral News

The regulations implementing the Legacy Pension Reforms have now been registered and are effective on and from 7 December 2024. This means that the five year commutation window has now commenced and will cease on 6 December 2029.

Without fanfare or prior notice, the Albanese Government has initiated legacy pension reform. While legacy pension reform was proposed by the previous Government, no such reform was achieved before its demise.

Click here to see the key points of the pension commutation reform.

Pension Reserve Reform deals with the treatment of amounts (called “surplus amounts” or (released) “pension reserves”) which are no longer required to support the payment of a legacy pension because the pension has ceased (whether due to the death of the pensioner or because the pension has been commuted (under the proposed commutation reforms).

From 20 September 2024, the maximum rate of the Age Pension has increased by $28.10 (single rate) and $42.40 (combined rate) per fortnightly instalment period. The Age Pension is increased each 20 March and 20 September.

The cut-off income levels for the entitlement to the Seniors Health Card have also been increased with effect on and from 20 September 2024.

There are four steps which must be completed to successfully claim a tax deduction for your personal superannuation contributions. If one or more steps are missing or not completed, the Commissioner of Taxation has no discretion to overlook those missing or incomplete steps.

If a pension commences as a non-reversionary pension can that pension be made reversionary without stopping and restarting the pension? The answer is a simple and definite “Yes” if the pension is an account style pension (such as account based pensions and transition to retirement pensions) and the governing rules expressly permit pensions to be varied.

Normally, in the superannuation world, gender gaps mean that females have less super than males. However, this is not the case with Downsizer Contributions as shown by recently released ATO contributions data.

The Super Fund Lookup (superfundlookup.gov.au) is a public accessible website maintained by the ATO listing very basic information about regulated superannuation funds – both APRA regulated funds such as industry funds and retail funds – as well as self-managed superannuation funds. However, this article will deal with self-managed superannuation funds.

This question formed the background to a recently issued Private Binding Ruling – the 2024 PBR (reference details below). The rules of most superannuation funds specify that on the death of a member, the interest or interests of the member will, subject to any binding death benefit nomination, be allocated by the trustee to or amongst a class of eligible beneficiaries of the deceased member.

SMSF borrowing requires expert attention to detail, and our associated legal firm Townsends Lawyers provide the full range of specialist SMSF borrowing services – from strategic advice to SMSF and company establishment, holding trust deed and documentation, stamping implementation and LRBA unwinding. We provide one simple online form so you can select only the services you need, and advice is always only a phone call away.

It is not possible to backdate the commencement of a pension. However, if the trustee and the member have informally agreed that a pension would commence from a particular date in a financial year (typically, 1 July for obvious reasons) and, in fact, pension payments are made in that financial year and the aggregate of the pension payments are sufficient to satisfy the minimum pension drawdown requirement for that financial year (pro-rata’d if the pension commenced after 1 July) – then the pension will have commenced on the first day of the period used to calculate the minimum drawdown requirement as per the informal agreement between the trustee and the member.

ASIC has advised that two directors from Western Australia have been convicted and fined for failing to have a Director Identification Number (DIN) while acting as a director of a company. Both directors were convicted of breaching s1272C(1) of the Corporations Act and were each fined $5,000 and ordered to pay court costs (albeit a small amount).

Well probably “yes” to answer to the song’s rhetorical question. But we need to start at the beginning.

There are three principal differences between a reversion of the pension to the spouse of the deceased member and the issue of a new pension to the spouse of the deceased member.

Each 1 July various superannuation thresholds are updated by the ATO. For the 2024/25 the concessional contributions cap increased from $27,500 to $30,000 and the non-concessional contributions cap increased from $110,000 to $120,000. The CGT contribution cap also increased from $1,705,000 to $1,780,000. But the low rate cap amount which was $235,000 for the 2023/24 financial year did not increase – in fact, it was not even published by the ATO. What is going on?

From purely a superannuation perspective, the 2024 Budget has been a bit of a non-starter. Only two SMSF related announcements were made: the first relating to the deeming test for age pensions and the second relating to payment of SG contributions on Government funded Paid Parental Leave.

Now that the 2023/24 financial year is coming to a close, it will be necessary for individuals receiving pensions from their SMSFs, to ensure that the minimum pension requirement in relation to each of their pensions has been satisfied by 30 June 2024.

This article considers the application of the “catch-up” contribution provisions – when they can be made? How much can be made? And what happens if an excess of “catch up” contributions are made?