SUPERCentral News
The Federal Government has recently released a public draft of the changes to be made to the trust tax provisions. The changes will apply to the 2010/11 and subsequent financial years. The changes have been released in draft form to allow a short period for public comments on the amendments to be made. The intention of the Government is that these changes will be legislated before 30 June 2011.
Recent changes to the operation of the ABN website have resulted in newly established SMSFs bearing the description – “Registered – Status: Not Determined”. This moniker will remain with the fund until the ATO processes the first annual return for the fund and issues a notice of compliance.
As legal advisers to the superannuation industry our associate Townsends Lawyers have spent a lot of time researching, evaluating, analysing and considering how the gearing law operates in order to advise a multitude of funds and their advisers on how to comply with s.67A while gaining maximum benefit from it. Their SMSF team has now written the e-Guide to SMSF Borrowing to demystify the process and to provide accountants and financial planners with a roadmap that doesn’t get bogged down in legalese and clearly outlines the fundamental principles of SMSF gearing in two volumes:
The Government has announced that for 2012/13 and following financial years, a special concessional contribution cap will apply to super investors then aged 50 or more. This replaces the current transitional contribution cap which will cease to apply from 1 July 2012. The proposal is that if a super investor is aged 50 or more during the financial year and has super assets of less than $500,000, then a $50,000 concessional contribution cap will apply instead of $25,000.
Not necessarily: it all depends on the terms of the pension.
The Tax Commissioner, Mr Michael D’Ascenzo, in his speech to the 2011 SPAA Conference discussed a number of issues which are particularly relevant to self managed super funds. The key points from his speech covered the consequences of natural disasters on funds which have invested using limited recourse borrowings; the excess contributions tax discretion and the audit focus for 2011/12.
The ATO has released the superannuation thresholds which will apply for the 2011/12 financial year. In short there is no joy. The main contribution caps are unchanged. It is sobering to reflect that the concessional and ordinary non-concessional contribution caps have not increased since 2007/08.
SUPERCentral has developed a complimentary Compliance Certificate to assist auditors who are auditing SMSFs which use the SUPERCentral Governing Rules.
We thought you needed to know about some recent changes to the NSW Duties Act which could affect any advice you provide about changing the trustees of an SMSF. We may have also provided Change of Trustee documents for you in the recent past and if you haven’t yet processed those documents you may want to consider this advice before doing anything further.
The contribution splitting from one member to their spouse can (subject to one exception) only occur in the financial year immediately following the contribution year.
One of the trip wires of the current super system is that commencing a pension may invalidate a tax deduction for personal contributions.
The long and the short of this Draft Determination is that SMSFs will be treated as paying a benefit on 30 June if the benefit is paid by why of a cheque dated 30 June.
21 August 2010 is important because the new version of the SUPERCentral Governing Rules will apply on and from that date.
This legislation applies from 7 July 2010 and introduces new sections 67A and 67B into the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act, 1993.
The report of the Super System Review was handed to the Federal Government on 30 June 2010 and on Monday, 5 July the Report was released by the Government.
NSW has recently introduced a new concession in respect of the transfer of dutiable property (eg land) held by a member of a super fund to their super fund
SUPERCentral, in conjunction with its lawyers, Townsends Business & Corporate Lawyers, is currently revising the general product disclosure statement
We are currently in the process of refreshing the toolkit documents for 2010/11 financial year.
The Federal Government has announced that the 50% minimum pension relief which has applied for the last two financial years will now apply for 2010/11.
The Government has introduced a Bill to amend the current limited recourse borrowing exception.