Goal posts moved again.

Advice to self-employed people, especially the young - Don't put your money into a super fund voluntarily. You may well never see it beyond having it doled out to you like the old age pension. Once politicians years ago started referring to Australia's superannuation pool as an "important national asset" We knew what they were planning.

As the unions drove manufacturing out of Australia with their greed and militancy (cars, the garment industries, fuel refineries, steel making) they learned their mistake too late and Labor had to keep them alive somehow and they came up with the idea of handing the industry super funds into union control as its new cash feeding trough. Now we are seeing the next stage.
 
mmm....shiney! said:
There are significant tax benefits for the self-employed in making voluntary contributions. They may need to weigh up the known needs of the present with the unknown circumstances in the future.
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If I knew that I would be retiring in the next few years I would be putting money in there to save tax but if I was currently self employed at 30 I would be thinking about it deeply - As you say, it's always been a logical way to optimise tax but now there is the lingering question of what the politicians are planning... It's a tricky question indeed.
 
Like all things PM, you cut your clothe to suit the width. If Super is going in at 10% you optimise it to suit your circumstance, any former voluntary contributions need a new strategy.
You can’t blame the system every time it fucks you over, get ahead of the game.
A few years ago during a court case with ICAC my assets for frozen for a couple of years and I was only allowed $500 a week from my bank account. I started selling coins on eBay, transferred the takings to a betting app which allowed me to withdraw my wins to their credit card.
I became accomplished on eBay selling and betting on the favourites, no dip in my cashflow.
 
Interested to hear what people are doing with their super.
I am 45 and just set up a SMSF to exit the main funds, its just sitting in a bank account ready to invest.
I moved to Australia in 2001, I was also self employed for over 6 years, so I only have $160k.
 
mmm....shiney! said:
@DJE, I haven't got a great deal of time to elaborate at the moment but a SMSF has tax advantages that can be employed to minimise risk for a start. You're self-employed, do you have a family, a mortgage etc? You can get life, IP, Trauma, TPD insurance etc that can be linked to your SMSF and a fair bit of the premiums are paid by it. Also, you can leverage your cash position to borrow for a property for example, though I'm not sure that this is the best time to be buying RE. And then of course there's the voluntary contributions which can minimise your taxable income.
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Thanks.
I'm now employed full time, have been for the last 7 years.
I have a partner we're not married, she owns property and acreage freehold, I'm currently renting in the city being close to work, no kids.
She is actually selling a 5 acre plot to fund renovations, and I'll look to seek professional advice on whether there is an option for me to purchase the land through my SMSF (obviously at a reduced rate) as an investment and it can help fund the Reno's :) not sure if this is possible or not.
Definitely not looking to purchase property in the next few years, I think I'll sit back and see what pans out.
 
I wonder if the government will carve out a niche for farmers who have their farms managed by their self managed super funds. If not, a significant portion of them will be measurably worse off by these reforms.
 
A serious problem with smsf is transfer of wealth to the next generation.
A members balance must be paid out to the next of kin/s. That would mean almost certainly a forced sale of property if property is what the fund had.

Timmy
 
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