By Colin Lewis, October 2019 You are about to buy an investment property, or your business premises, and you’ve heard of the merits of structuring the purchase through a self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF). So, you’re looking to set one up thinking (naturally) that anyone can have an SMSF. Right? You might be surprised to find that…
By Colin Lewis, September 2019 Planning for the inevitability death – while morbid – is important. It gives you comfort knowing that what you’ve accumulated will go to your intended beneficiaries and it gives your loved ones, peace of mind knowing they’ll be looked after. On death, when it comes to your superannuation, only your…
By Matthew Collins, on behalf of Cufflinks, August 2019 For many years, superannuation has provided significant tax benefits for retirees. However, recent changes in legislation will limit the amount that can be placed into super, and investment returns may not be as good as in the past. As a result, future generations will pay more…
By Colin Lewis, August 2019 Back in November 2015, the then Treasurer Scott Morrison enunciated the view that “Super was never designed to be an open-ended vehicle for wealth creation.” So, we now have a superannuation system that is designed to limit how much can go into it and ensure that money in it must…
By Graeme Colley, July 2019 (on behalf of Cufflinks) There are a lot of rules and regulations when it comes to superannuation and running your SMSF. Fund investments are for the sole purpose of providing benefits for the members or their dependants for superannuation purposes and not for personal reasons. Here are some common mistakes and…
By Colin Lewis, July 2019 The new financial year brings new opportunities for some people to top-up their superannuation. Catch-up pre-tax concessional contributions (CCs) If you didn’t utilise the full $25,000 CCs cap in 2018/19 then the unused amount may now be contributed this financial year provided the total amount you had in the super…
By Geoff Walker, June 2019 (on behalf of Cuffelinks) The $64,000 question from the recent Federal election is, “Why did Labor lose?”. Many well-informed retirees will say we should be talking about the $67,000 question. Some of you may ask, “Why bother with this debunking now Labor has lost the election?” The answer is that many people…
By Colin Lewis, June 2019 With the Reserve Bank recently cutting the official cash rate to a historic low of 1.25 percent and the likelihood of further cuts to come, investors are seeing their returns eroded. For retirees with investable assets sitting in cash, term deposits and fixed interest securities, lower returns mean less income…
By Colin Lewis May 2019 Often, it’s not until you’re about to lose something that you really appreciate what you’ve got. Whether or not wage earners recognised this with their voluntary concessional (pre-tax) superannuation contributions is another thing. For most employees, their contributions come mainly via the 9.5 percent compulsory Superannuation Guarantee (SG) paid by…
By Colin Lewis, April, 2019 With the upcoming election, it’s worth revisiting Labor’s proposed changes to superannuation. Firstly, Labor wants to reduce the non-concessional contributions cap to $75,000 a year (currently $100,000). This would reduce the maximum three-year bring-forward to $225,000 (currently $300,000). Building your retirement nest egg in super would become harder under Labor. …
