Another attack on SMSF's

SMSF tax laws lift shift to property
Published on Wednesday, 20 February 2013
20 February 2013 | Anthony Klan, The Australian, page 3
Mum and dad investors are increasingly using SMSFs to avoid paying capital gains tax on investment properties. ATO figures show in the past four years residential property grew substantially faster than all other SMSF investments. SPAA has called on its members to fight any changes. The group has also pointed out the property taxes facing SMSFs are the same as taxes on properties held in super institutional funds. The difference is between the way super laws tax property and the property taxes facing individuals outside the super system. SPAA's chief executive Andrea Slattery raised concerns that property spruikers were encouraging less sophisticated investors to set up SMSFs.


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The big funds are are threatened by the rapid uptake of SMSF's.

SMSF's now make up more than 30% of the total superannuation assets and are the largest sector of the superannuation industry.

 

The SMSF system that has evolved by accident really has the retail and industry funds scared. I think now with over 1 million people in SMSF's its too big to squash. There is a new organization called SMSF Owners Alliance. I have more info about them and will post a seperate thread about them

Their website is;
http://smsfoa.org.au/join-now.html

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what happens if you have physical gold in your SMSF and you
are on the way to the secure location to deposit it and you get held up and lose it?

whats the actual process?

 

I've often wondered the same thing. I guess it would be a matter of completing a police report, and reporting it as a loss in the next audit.

What happens if your SMSF buys shares in XXX company and they go under?

Or someone steals from your SMSF: http://www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-funds/smsf-advisor-cops-18month-sentence-20130221-2esx7.html

 

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SMSFs flex political muscle with call for a million to fight against super tax changes
Published 15 February 2013 09:59, Updated 18 February 2013 07:20

"We do have political clout," SPAA chief Andrea Slattery Photo: Jane Lindhe

The association for Self Managed Super Fund professionals will start collecting signatures from SMSF members in a petition asking Canberra for a bipartisan commitment to the current rules governing superannuation.

In the first grass roots lobbying movement of its kind, the Superannuation Professionals Association Australia (SPAA) will begin approaching the almost one million people who invest via a self managed super fund in Australia, asking them to join together in opposition to the changes.

Traditionally, Australians have invested their superannuation in large pooled funds managed either by not-for-profit industry funds, or via tax effective investment vehicles managed by large retail funds managers.

In recent years, an increasing number of people have chosen to take their money out of the large funds to start self-managed funds.

There are now almost 500,000 SMSFs in Australia; the number of net new funds in the segment grew 26 per cent in calendar year 2012 on the back of an 84 per cent growth rate the previous year.

The amount of assets in the SMSF segment now accounts for almost a third of the approximately $1.4 trillion superannuation savings pool.

While the lawyers, accountants and investment advisors that provide advice to the SMSF industry have voiced their opposition to the government changing the rules around super through their various associations and professional bodies, there is currently no united lobbying group representing individual SMSF trustees and fund members.

SPAA's membership is believed to represent professionals that provide advice to SMSFs that represent a little more than half of segment's almost $500 billion in assets.

The "call to arms" petition announced by SPAA chief Andrea Slattery at the group's annual conference in Melbourne will test the influence and reach of the association into the members of the funds.

"A lot of people think that because we are in the SMSF sector we don't have the ability to rally and to round up all the individuals and all the different sectors into one voice. I believe we can," Slattery told a receptive room of SPAAA members.

"The SMSF sector represents close to one million members, it's also very large in relation to the service provision of that sector. This equates to many voters. We do have political clout," Slattery says.

Shorten cancelled

Treasury outlined in February it costs taxpayers $32 billion to provide the concessions that makes superannuation a tax effective place for people to hold their savings.

Treasury's expression of the super concessions as a cost, rather than an inducement to save, has been widely interpreted as a signal the Federal Government will find ways to cut some concessions in super in the upcoming May budget.

Bill Shorten, the minister for employment and workplace relations and financial services and superannuation in the Gillard Government was scheduled to speak at the SPAA conference but cancelled at the last minute.

 

^^^^^^^ SPAA and Andrea Slattery are not representative of SMSF's dispite their spin. They represent the financial planners. Most financial planners are fiscal pygmies. Their exam to qualify and give advice you could fit their knowledge on a postage stamp.

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500k seems like a higher percentage than I would've expected figuring that represents approximately 5% of the working population & most people I know have never heard of SMSF or thought it was possible, even legal?

 

There are now close to 1 million people in SMSF's. The average number of members is 2. Our fund has the maximum 4.
SMSF's have been around for decades. In the 1970's & 80's it was almost exclusively people with businesses.

In the early 1990's there were less than 80,000. Once super became a cash cow for the advisers more and more people woke up and took control of their own.

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Ive said it before and ill say it again - SUPER is simply another thinly disguised TAX.

If you really think thats your money then youre deluding yourself!

 

I agree if your super is in a retail fund or and industry fund and its all paper equities or fiat as it would take time. I have property that is fully paid out plus bullion. The titles and bullion are in a safety deposit box held by my SMSF. The budget is not til May I am at 60 so I can take the lot out of super as a lump sum yesterday if need be

The labour nincompoops will be gone by september. The damaged they have caused will take two decades to repair. I expect they will not get within cooee of government for at least 3 terms. Too soon for my liking

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yeh you're lucky. for those of us who are still 3 decades or more away from retirement - the government will keep f.n.g with the taxation/rules of sMSF until there is nothing left of it!

I know i wont see 1 cent of my SMSF

 

I think the numbers may be statistically warped as you can't have a sole trustee in an SMSF? Is it possible to set up an SMSF for a corporate body instead of an individual? I know personally I could've called mine anything when I established it originally. In this case, I think it's a fair call to allow the ATO to investigate / amend the rules to prevent corporate tax evasion.

 

A SMSF is itself trust. When you establish a SMSF you are setting up a trust and the trust must have a trustee. It is possible and a good idea to have a company acting as trustee of the SMSF. The company directors will be members of the fund.

 

Then who are the beneficaries of a corporate SMSF? Are you saying its a corporate body? I'm all for SMSF's, please don't get me wrong, but in this fashion its plainly tax avoidance & in fairness to the average punter it goes outside it's original intention to provide for individuals in their retirement. Clearly, these funds are screwing the whole system up for the average self funded retiree?

 

I think you believe in the govenments fairy tales about people and companies rorting the tax system. The reality is the tax legislation that continues to grow at an expodential rate is as clear as mud.

The real thieves are our elected so called representatives those fools in treasury who wouldn't know a surplus from a deficit if it hit them in the face and of course their attack dog the ato.

The 93% penalty tax charged regardless if you go over the contribution caps is plain larceny. That is why you need to be in charge of your own SMSF. Never leave it to the accountant tripple check everything, Keep all receipts and cross correlate it with your quickbooks and BGL files. Your protection is being a true corporate director of your SMSF.

Your accountant has an out when you sign off that your tax return is an accurate and true representation of your affairs as submitted. You are the bunny with your @ss on the line not him or her.

Think and grow rich

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There we go again that bloody aweful word average. Do you really aspire to being an "average" loser ?

The only screwing occuring is our Pollies who are on a defined benefit gold mine funded by you and I and the unelected swill in the government departments who are sqeezing honest law abdiding tax payers who just want life for their kids to be better.

It is time we made them accountable. Try running a small business

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