SUPERCentral News
The change has been made as part of the Government’s crackdown on illegal early release schemes.
The ATO is changing its attitude to SMSFs which are serial non-lodgers of their annual returns.
The recent decision of the Financial Ombudsman’s Service in the Basis Capital case and the Ripoll Inquiry’s recommendation that financial advisers have a legislated fiduciary duty to clients will result in considerable pressure on advisers to review their approved products, particularly the number of products on the list.
While the Government has for the current financial year halved the minimum pension limit for account-based and transition to retirement pensions what if the fund cannot pay the reduced pension limit?
In this case, the ATO may overlook the failure to implement the divestment strategy.
In this case, the ATO may overlook the failure to implement the divestment strategy.
The ATO has indicated that it will provide some extra statutory concessions from the rigorous application of the In house asset rules.
The ATO during 2009/10 will concentrate on the following key areas
The ATO is currently working on changes to the Super Fund Lookup website. This website lists all regulated superannuation funds including SMSFs.
It seems likely that the process for registering a new SMSF will be altered and the ATO may require further information to be provided and additional requirements to be satisfied in order to filter out SMSFs which have been established solely to facilitate illegal early release schemes.
The ATO has recently issued letters to trustees of SMSFs who, despite previous ATO reminders, have outstanding tax returns from previous years.
The Senator has rightly identified the level of fees as a significant issue for super. The Senator has used the example that if fees are 200 basis points – rather than 100 basis points – this difference could over 30 years reduce the final return by up to 20%.
This review – aka the Harmer Review – is expected to provide its final report in February 2009.
The Senator quotes the figure that there are 31.7 million super accounts for 11.4 million adults with 6.4 million accounts being considered “lost”.
It is now much harder to get a bank loan and the old laissez-faire attitude that has characterised loan applications during the recent financial boom won’t work any more. Loans are still available for those who put up good quality applications. So if you want to get a loan for an SMSF to purchase real estate take the time to ensure your application is put together well.
One principle reason for the demise of the superannuation contributions surcharge was that the implementation and collection costs were excessive. In fact, the ATO had very significant implementation problems.
The Government has just announced that MediSuper will be up and running from July 2010.
In a very interesting speech recently given by the Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, the Treasurer discussed in general terms, tax reforms and the timing of any changes which arises from the Henry Tax Review.
The ATO has the power to deem an in-house asset as not being an in-house asset. This power is conferred by s71(1)(e) of the SIS Act. The ATO has recently released a statement of principles as to when the ATO will exercise this magic power to determine that an in-house asset is not an in-house asset.
Cupid’s arrow recently pricked a client of ours who at the age of 61 has just remarried. He rang us to ask whether his new marriage would affect his Will. The answer of course is that it most certainly does. It is appropriate to look at when a Will is revoked by certain actions of the testator, sometimes automatically without the testator realising.