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Category: Eureka Report

The ATO’s last minute pensions reprieve

                  SUMMARY: ATO clarifies rules on $1.6m pension rollbacks, and gives a pardon for death benefit errors in the past. The Tax Office has handed out pardons for some past sins as it tries to smooth the deck of some compliance issues ahead of 1 July. The […]

The new rules on salary sacrificing

                        SUMMARY: Salary sacrifice changes forever on 1 July. Are you ready? One big question that will not be answered until after 1 July is … how many employers will even continue to offer super salary sacrifice for their staff? From 1 July, 2017, […]

Federal Budget 2017: The super pros and cons

SUMMARY: Super bonus for downsizing retirees the upside,  property tax deductions the main downside from Federal Budget 2017. If you are a self-managed super fund trustee, it’s safe to take a breath. Take in a deep one. The Federal Budget was one that largely left SMSFs alone. It absolutely needed to be – with all […]

Super strategies for death

                                  SUMMARY: How the death of a spouse will impact on the $1.6m pension limit. And what to do about it. In days gone by, a good old reversionary pension would generally do the trick. It’d cover most situations. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]