As I welcome you to the start of a new financial year, above all, I trust you, your family members, friends and colleagues are all in good health. Beyond your personal heath an important consideration for many at this time will be the health of their SMSF and its investment portfolio and I’m guessing that…
June 29, 2020
ATO firms up SMSF non-arm’s-length rules
Opinion piece written by Peter Burgess, Deputy CEO / Director of Policy & Education, SMSF Association First published in The Financial Review on 18 June 2020. Licensed by Copyright Agency. New guidelines for self-managed superannuation funds from the Australian Taxation Office could have important implications for SMSFs that, under normal commercial arrangements, could be expected…
June 29, 2020
Issue 12: Are alternative assets right for your SMSF?
It’s hard to believe that this is the twelfth article in this series; even more so when we consider that when the first was written a year ago, we were in a very different investment environment. With the change in fortunes for markets over recent months, some investors and SMSF trustees may find it somewhat…
June 10, 2020
Your 2020 end of financial year (EOFY) considerations
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone’s lives, and SMSF trustees are no exception. While the worst of the pandemic is (hopefully) behind us, you may still have difficult questions to ponder as you focus on how best to position your SMSF in 2020-21, as well as meet your fund’s annual regulatory obligations for 2019-20. If…
June 10, 2020
Cash proves king for SMSFs in COVID-19 slump
Opinion piece written by John Maroney, CEO, SMSF Association First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on 09 June 2020. Licensed by Copyright Agency. One of the benefits of saving for retirement through a self-managed super fund is that when you need to respond quickly to changing economic or market conditions that could hurt the…
May 25, 2020
Issue 11: Portfolio repair to your SMSF following market disruption
Hello once more and thank you for joining in during these challenging times and once again, I trust that you, your family, friends and colleagues are all well and are starting to feel more comfortable as some social restrictions begin to be lifted. As the overriding principle for restrictions to continue to be lifted is…
May 21, 2020
Here’s an end-of-year guide for SMSF trustees
Opinion piece written by John Maroney, CEO, SMSF Association First published in the Financial Review on 21 May 2020. Licensed by Copyright Agency. COVID-19 will make the end of the financial year more complicated than usual for some self-managed superannuation fund trustees. Here are some tips. For self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) trustees, the end of any financial…
May 20, 2020
SMSF liquidity lessons learnt from the pandemic
Written by Robin Bowerman, Head of Corporate Affairs at Vanguard/Vice Chair of the SMSF Association Sometimes it is true that you don’t know what you’ve got. Till it’s gone Music aficionados will recognise that line from Joni Mitchell’s 1970s hit Big Yellow Taxi. There will be many lessons we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and its…
May 7, 2020
Dividends, growth and capital – Your COVID-19 considerations
Written by Franco Morelli, Policy Manager, SMSF Association In August 2019, when the ATO wrote to nearly 18,000 SMSF trustees about portfolio diversification, many in the industry thought the regulator was overstepping the mark. Now the ATO looks like a prophet. As the SMSF Association conveyed at the time, the ATO was not trying to…
May 6, 2020
Be aware of biases
Written by Robin Bowerman, Head of Corporate Affairs at Vanguard/Vice Chair of the SMSF Association As the curve continues to flatten and as states around Australia begin to ease lockdown restrictions, many might be wondering what life will look like “on the other side” of the COVID-19 crisis. Restarting economies after they have been in…