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Category: Articles

Super gearing may be on borrowed time

                  SUMMARY: Gearing-in-super issues continue to be touched up in the lead up to 30 June. Things are getting interesting in the super fund loans space and the 30 June light coming down the super-changes tunnel. “Interesting” in an “uncertain” sense. The light could be a train. […]

Where SMSFs fit in the property debate

  SUMMARY: SMSF property investors are not the enemy of first home buyers. Property and superannuation are top of the pops at the moment – barely a TV news bulletin occurs without one of both of them getting a guernsey. This is more airplay than either of them usually get. Putting them both in the […]

Get into the spouse super juggling act

        SUMMARY: Five strategies for couples to even up super balances this year, if they can act quickly. Fatigue has set in. And some barely repressable anger. Treasurer Scott Morrison’s Budget on May 9 had better not have major super changes in it. The changes that got through parliament late last year […]

Kill and maim to get point across

In order to get my point about insurance across forcefully to a mum and dad, I usually need to kill one of them. To get singles on board, I either have to maim them in a horrific car accident, or give them a life-threatening cancer. Sounds drastic, sure. But we’re talking life and death here, […]

Don’t lose out by default

      Default insurance coverage inside super is fuelling a dangerous “she’ll be right, mate” attitude to protection among Australian families. Too many Australians see some minor levels of insurance inside their super funds and believe they are “covered”. But default coverage levels have not taken anyone’s circumstances into consideration. Your need, or your […]

Super Advice: Your burning super and pension questions answered

              SUMMARY: The most common questions being asked in the lead-up to 30 June and the big-bang changes. Question: How can I maximise how much money I put into super this financial year? Answer: Until 30 June, we’re still operating under the “current” rules. And those allow for concessional […]

Mixing super & property : The combo is the stuff nightmares are made of

                  If you wanted to get an Australian all hot and steamy over finances, there would be two essential elements to your narrative. Your elevator pitch would maximise the potential audience if the following phrases were weaved in – “legal tax dodge” and “property riches”. We’re famous […]

Super is not a housing affordability solution

    SUMMARY: SMSF property investors need to keep a self-interested eye on the current housing affordability debate. Aha. It must, officially, be time to hyperventilate over property prices. The “unaffordability crisis” is nightly news again. Political leaders are increasingly jawboning about strategies to help first-home buyers. Occasionally, they just get silly enough to act […]

A powerful pension top-up strategy

    SUMMARY: Get acquainted with partial commutations. They are going to be critical for SMSFs in the near term. Changes to the law often mean the death to some strategies. But they can equally breathe fresh life into previously unloved strategies. Transition to retirement (TTR) strategies, thanks to the taxation of TTR pension funds […]

Salary sacrificing will soon get easier

          SUMMARY: Restrictions taken off salary sacrifice strategies, plus New Zealand’s super pension age lift is a taste of things to come in Australia. Salary sacrifice strategies will be much easier to implement when the new super rules come into force on 1 July. No longer will employees have to wonder […]