Written by Robin Bowerman, Head of Corporate Affairs at Vanguard/Board Director of the SMSF Association Checking your super fund’s cash flow of contributions in and pension payments out is a particularly critical part of end-of-financial-year planning for 2017-18. Don’t leave it until the last minute. Super money in Well before June 30, make sure you…
Written by Robin Bowerman, Head of Market Strategy and Communications at Vanguard/Board Director of the SMSF Association After two weeks of surprising and concerning revelations about the inner workings of some of the larger financial planning businesses in the country, it was refreshing to attend the SMSF trustee expo in Melbourne last weekend. It was…
The SMSF Association has drafted a letter that you can send to Federal Members of Parliament (MPs) and Senators to express your opposition to Labor’s franking credit policy. The letter details the policy weaknesses and unfairness of the Labor policy. This letter can be used for you to send a personal letter to your MP…
Dividend imputation system distorted The SMSF Association supports the current policy settings for the dividend imputation system. The current system prevents double taxation on company profits and ensures shareholders are taxed on company profits at their marginal tax rate. A shareholder in a company is therefore in the same economic position as a sole proprietor…
Written by Robin Bowerman, Head of Market Strategy and Communications at Vanguard/Board Director of the SMSF Association With the long-term outlook for a lower-return, higher risk investment environment, investors have a particularly strong incentive to have carefully diversified portfolios and sound investment strategies. It is critical to handle these more challenging conditions in a disciplined…
Written by Robin Bowerman, Head of Market Strategy and Communications at Vanguard/Board Director of the SMSF Association One of the simplest ways to make your retirement savings more efficient and less costly is to get rid of needless multiple super accounts. The vast majority of super fund members with multiple accounts unnecessarily pay multiple sets…
Written by Robin Bowerman, Head of Market Strategy and Communications at Vanguard/Board Director of the SMSF Association It has been a big year for the SMSF industry given the major policy changes the federal government made to super in the 2016 budget. Last week the Self-managed Super Fund Association held its national conference in Sydney…
Written by Robin Bowerman, Head of Market Strategy and Communications at Vanguard/Board Director of the SMSF Association It would be difficult to underestimate the impact that self-managed super has on competition between super funds – with both SMSF and non-SMSF members being the winners. As actuaries Rice Warner comments in its recently-published Superannuation market projections report…
Written by Franco Morelli, Policy Advisor, SMSF Association Running a self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) can be hard, but running a family is even harder. So why would anyone want to mix the two? When discussing SMSFs and children the narrative always suggests that it isn’t a very good idea, especially with the issue of…
The SMSF Association and Accurium are the first to publish detailed figures on how the retirement wealth of Australia’s SMSFs have changed post the 2016 SMSF annual tax returns. This new research features the increases in median SMSF balances and provides facts on retirees’ desired lifestyles in retirement including confidence levels on financial health. The…