SUPERCentral News
Today, the High Court has handed down its decision in the Hill v Zuda Pty Ltd as trustee for the Holly Superannuation Fund case. Michael Hallinan reports.
APRA has recently published its quarterly superannuation statistics for the December 2021 Quarter. One key item from that publication is that total super assets at 31 December 2021 are estimated to be $3.5 trillion, of which the SMSF segment is estimated to be $876 billion.
Given the end of the financial year is nigh, it is time to ensure that the minimum pension drawdown - the minimum drawdown for short - has been or will be satisfied in respect of the current financial year. If the minimum drawdown is not satisfied by the end of the financial year, the SMSF will lose its entitlement to the full exempt current pension income deduction. Additionally, there are transfer account balance consequences as well.
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The contribution rules applying for the 2022/23 and later financial years have been significantly (and favourably) altered by the implementation of the Federal Government’s superannuation reform announced in the 2021 Federal Budget.
The current budget contained only one SMSF relevant measure: the extension of the pension drawdown relief for another year.
The ATO recently released more significant superannuation thresholds which are to apply to the 2022/23 financial year.
The Tax Office recently released its long-awaited guidance on how it will treat distributions from a family trust in situations where it believes that someone other than the recipient of the trust distribution will actually obtain the benefit of it, and the reason for distributing to the initial recipient was to save tax.
Where a superannuation fund (including an SMSF) makes a payment to a member where the payment is in breach of the payments standards, the payment will be included in the assessable income of the member and taxed in the member's hands at the member's marginal rate of tax. The payment is expressly excluded from the favourable taxation treatment which applies to superannuation lump sums. This is the result of s304-10(1) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.
The SUPERCentral Governing Rules have been updated with effect from 17 February 2022. Some (but not all) of the key details of the changes to the Governing Rules are detailed here.
COVID-19 re-contributions are superannuation contributions which are a return to the superannuation system of a COVID-19 release amount. They are new personal superannuation contributions which have been identified by you as being COVID-19 re-contributions.
If you have SMSF trust deeds which have not been updated recently and you would like to hear how our SUPERCentral bulk update process works, please give us a call on 02 8296 6266.
We offer a full suite of online documents and services to support your SMSF needs from SMSF establishment, trust deeds, amendment, compliance, pensions, superannuation splitting, winding up, death benefit planning and more.
Most of the superannuation changes announced in the 2021 May Federal Budget are now before Parliament as Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Superannuation Outcomes for Australians and Helping Australian Businesses Invest) Bill 2021 (yes - that is its official title!).
In broad terms, the Superannuation Guarantee Scheme (SG Scheme) provides that an employer who does not provide a minimum level of superannuation support (currently 10% of an employee's ordinary time earnings for 2021/22 but this will increase to 10.5% for 2022/23) will be liable to pay to the Government a charge (the Superannuation Guarantee Charge or SG Charge).
From 1 July 2022 the cap on the amount of contributions which can participate in the First Home Super Saver Scheme (FHSS Scheme) will be $50,000 (currently the cap is $30,000).
From 1 July 2022 the access age for downsizer contributions will be age 60 (currently age 65).
With an ageing SMSF population what factors do we as advisers need to consider to determine whether our clients have capacity to act as a trustee? Jeff Song, Associate of Townsends Business & Corporate Lawyers will look at types of incapacity, the presumptions of sanity, stress test the SMSF for trustee incapacity and more. Register now by clicking the link above.
The ATO has recently confirmed that the Covid-19 reliefs which applied to SMSFs for the 2019/20 and 2020/21 will continue to apply to the current financial year of 2021/22. However, it would seem unlikely that they would be further extended beyond 1 July 2022.