In an article for the website Smart Company, Kirsten Robb sheds light on the financial advice unethically offered by real estate agents. It should be noted that property promoters who don’t carry an Australian Financial Services (AFS) license are not eligible to give recommendations on SMSF-routed real estate investments. Yet, this is what’s exactly happening rampantly.
Super News
Superannuation to the Rescue: The Importance of Super Fund
Superannuation, in many ways, is our vehicle leading to a decent post-retirement life. We have this fleeting vision of life, so we often tend to disbelieve in the distant future; but surprisingly, it arrives one day. We actually grow old and retire, and it is then that Superannuation fund comes to our rescue; if we have paid some emphasis on it during the course of our working lives that is. Let us first define superannuation and explain the importance of Super fund.
AFS License Required when Giving SMSF Advice
In an article for the Property Observer, Jonathan Chancellor brings to light the spurious conduct of real estate agents and property promoters who offer SMSF advice without holding an Australian Financial Services (AFS) license.
Promoters are coaxing investors into using their SMSF kitty to buy residential and commercial properties. The appalling state of affair became further evident with the fall of one-stop-shop, Charterhill.
What proves to be the undoing of all such operators is the fact that they use one-size-fits-all strategy for every kind of investor. How can you go for a single combination (SMSF, property, and Limited recourse borrowing) for every hierarchy of investor and not face a bust, asks Chancellor.
Aspirations of fly-by-night dealers and delinquent promoters need to be put to rest; after all, we are talking about SMSF money pouring into real estate- and it is a sum of billions, it needs being asserted.
You can read the original article here.
Super Taxation Regime Does Not Need Big Changes
In an article for the website Super Review, Mike Taylor suggests that the prevailing Super tax regime can work quite well and lofty changes need not be made in the structure. It is nice to think of altering the concessional contribution cap, contravention threshold, and a few more things to an extent, but it does not mean we start making real big changes to the regime.
ATO Changes Contravention Thresholds
The definition of what constitutes an SMSF contravention is all set to change in the light of the new penalty regime of the ATO. July 1 will alter the chapters of contravention thresholds, but there is no reason to panic as the auditors are registered with the commonwealth agency and they can be trusted.
Treating Bank Accounts as Segregated Current Pension Asset
ATO’s Taxation Determination 2014/7 came out on 9 April and was called “Income Tax: in what circumstances is a bank account of a complying superannuation fund a segregated current pension asset under section 295-385 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) (‘ITAA’)?”. In the light of the ATO’s directive, let us find out what situations does the statement “an asset can be segregated on the whole but not in parts” sound workable in.
