SMSF trustees cannot claim travel expenses relating to residential investment property. This restriction has been in place since 1 July 2018 but is still not widely known. Removing this deduction reduces the potential of it being used as an early release mechanism whereby the SMSF is used to fund an annual trustee holiday to some exotic...
Though its application is limited, there is a new work test exemption for super contributions that’s been effective since 1 July 2019. A voluntary super contribution can now be made for a member, over age 65 but under age 75, in the first income year after retirement. This means that a 67-year-old individual, that retired in the...
The Holy Grail of the small business CGT exemptions is the 15 year exemption which provides, not only CGT exemptness, but also a $1.515M super contribution irrespective of a member’s total super balance. Be careful though. Apart from the obvious qualification requirements, over 55 and either small business and relevant assets of less than $6m or turnover...
The Assistant ATO Commissioner responsible for the SMSF segment, Dana Fleming, was involved in a robust exchange with an attendee at the SMSF Summit yesterday. The attendee’s octogenarian client had rolled a pension from an SMSF into an APRA fund and, due to the TBAR timing mismatch, had received a TBA breach notice which caused the...
Assistant Commissioner, Dana Fleming, gave an address at the CAANZ conference I was at recently. I thought a few of the highlights were worth sharing. The ATO is very pleased with the level of compliance and lodgement timeliness of the SMSF sector. In fact, its metrics are better than any of the other sectors. In the 2019 financial...
The ATO has introduced a new incentive to encourage on-time lodgement of SMSF returns. From 1 October 2019, if an SMSF is more than two weeks overdue on any annual return lodgment due date and hasn't requested a lodgment deferral, the Fund’s status on Super Fund Lookup will be changed to 'Regulation details removed'. This will be assessed...
The ATO's letters to over 17,000 funds with "90% or more of its funds in one asset, or a single asset class", have started to arrive. A similar letter will be sent to the last known auditor for each fund. It draws the trustee's attention to a potential $4,200 penalty and puts the auditor on notice to...
The ATO will ask nearly 18,000 SMSFs to provide evidence their investment strategy meets the retirement objectives and cash-flow requirements of the fund following on from concerns they may not be meeting investment diversification requirements under superannuation regulations. The emphasis is on funds that have over 90% of their fund investments in a single asset - generally...
Life insurance in SMSFs requires special consideration. Quite apart from the extra tax deduction gained from the future service benefit or the impost of extra tax where proceeds are not paid to tax dependants, there is the issue of who pays the premiums. Premiums must be debited to the insured’s account but which account? If the member...
The SMSF Association has just released their review of the Australian Taxation Office’s 2016-17 statistical overview of SMSFs. Given the amount of pre-election SMSF negativity it makes a very exciting read with highlights like; The average SMSF establishment size rose to $521,000 compared with the relatively stable levels of $370,000 in the previous four years –...