New data has shown how businesses across regional Victoria have taken advantage of the Victorian Government’s regional payroll tax cuts.  The number show businesses have saved more than $31 million in the first financial year it was introduced.

The activities that accountants without an AFSL provide to self-managed super funds (SMSFs) have been clarified by a recent Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) guidance note.

Amongst the tidal wave of criticism of the financial planning industry in the wake of the royal commission, education and ethical standards is one area a new amendment to the Corporations Act will seek to address from 1 January 2019.  

The Federal Government’s 2018 Budget contained much less change for the superannuation sector than previous years.

At the SMSF National Conference we heard James O’Halloran, Deputy Commissioner of Superannuation give a speech outlining the areas of focus for the balance of the financial year. The speech confirmed that a key component of the ATO is education to prevent breaches before they occur, especially in light of the recent superannuation reforms, but with some specific enforcement priorities.

The court in Aussiegolfa v FCT has recently examined the in-house asset rules (s62) and sole purpose test (s71) of the Superannuation Industry Supervision Act 1993 (Cth) (SISA).

The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) has released a media release warning the financial advice sector about the consequences of binding death benefit nominations (BDBNs) not being signed and witnessed correctly. 

In a move welcomed by SMSF trustees (and their advisors!) the ATO has announced the extension of the lodgment date for self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) annual returns for the 2016/17 year to 30 June 2018. The ATO has confirmed that because 30 June 2018 falls on a Saturday, lodgment can occur on Monday 2 July 2018 without penalties.  
 

For many people, their super is one of their most significant assets. But many people do not understand what happens to their super benefits (called death benefits) when they die.

With the new super laws due to commence on 1 July 2017, now is the time to consider whether your SMSF trust deed or pension document needs to be updated.

As set out in our previous article, the deadline for ensuring non-commercial related party limited recourse borrowing arrangement (LRBA) loans are rectified to reflect commercial terms is 31 January 2017. This date is fast approaching and SMSF trustees must take immediate action to ensure compliance with the ATO’s guidelines set out in PCG 2016/5. 

The Government has released the second round of draft rules for the implementation of the superannuation reform package announced in the 2016-2017 budget, which includes draft legislation for the 5 year concessional contributions catch-up measure.

The Government has released the second round of  draft rules for the implementation of the superannuation reform package announced in the 2016-2017 budget. This tranche includes the draft legislation for the proposed $1.6 million super pension cap, which essentially limits the amount that a member can hold in a pension account to $1.6 million from 1 July 2017.

The Government has released its second tranche of draft legislation to implement the proposed superannuation budget measures. 

The announcement of the $500,000 lifetime non-concessional contributions cap in the 2016-2017 budget was not only controversial, especially given what was widely perceived as its retrospective operation, but raised many questions as to how it would be applied. The Government has announced that the proposed lifetime cap will not proceed but will be replaced by a new measure.

In our previous Time For Action article the deadline for ensuring existing non-commercial limited recourse borrowing arrangement (LRBA) loans were put on commercial terms was 30 June 2016. 

On 6 April 2016, the ATO issued Practical Compliance Guidelines PCG 2016/5 Income tax - arm's length terms for Limited Recourse Borrowing Arrangements established by self managed superannuation funds (Guideline)

In December 2015 The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) stated that it would not take active steps to review non-commercial limited recourse borrowing arrangement (LRBA) loans prior to 30 June 2016.  It was recommended that LRBA loans should be put on arm’s length terms by 30 June 2016. If that occurred then the ATO had stated that it would not actively review such non-commercial LRBAs for prior years.

The ATO have announced the caps on the amount you can contribute to your superannuation for the 2015/16 financial year. 

The new penalty regime for self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) may allow a relatively lenient approach where cases involve a number of serious breaches of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 (SIS Act) , if the two recent Federal Court decisions of DCT v Lyons and DCT v Graham Family Superannuation Pty Ltd are any guide to how the regime will be applied by the Courts.