If you are unhappy with your superannuation fund or want different services and features, you are free to move to a different superannuation fund.
Read More27 important issues you should address before June 30 to ensure that your SMSF or other super fund are in order, and that you are making the most of the strategies available.
Here we go again. We have only a short time left to the end of the financial year to put our SMSF or other super funds in order and ensure we are making the most of the strategies available to us. Here is a checklist of the most important issues that you should address with your advisers before the year-end.
Read MoreThere weren’t many things I disagreed with in Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of
Money. Here are some top lessons from the book.
It is rare that you read a book and find yourself nodding in agreement with most of the
things an author writes. Yet there I was nodding away while reading The Psychology of
Money by Morgan Housel.
The regulations implementing the Legacy Pension Reforms have now been registered and are effective on and from 7 December 2024. This means that the five year commutation window has now commenced and will cease on 6 December 2029.
Read MoreThree things to consider when planning for an early retirement. Few of us go through our entire careers without at least thinking about the prospects of retiring early. Perhaps it is after a difficult period at work. Perhaps after a special vacation.
Read MoreAddressing retirees' fears of running out of money is essential for enhancing their quality of life. One of the biggest fears for retirees is running out of money during retirement and the impact this may have on their quality of life. With this in mind, many retirees only draw down the minimum of their account-based pension and lack the confidence to spend their retirement savings. They later regret being overly frugal in their early years of retirement. This is called ‘Regret Risk’.
Read MoreSuperannuation remains a highly tax-effective way for most Australians to save for retirement, offering concessional tax treatment of contributions and favourable tax rates on earnings within the structure. However, the proposed superannuation Division 296 tax on earnings of balances above $3 million1 requires careful consideration when developing financial planning strategies.
Read MoreUntil recently, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) stated that the average yearly self-managed super fund (SMSF) running cost was $13,900—a figure hotly contested by practitioners.
Read MoreI recently wrote an article on how much you need to save to have a comfortable retirement. I thought I would turn this around and look at the return side of things. This is my attempt to figure out what return is required to have a comfortable retirement at different savings levels.
Read MoreMost Australians don’t realise they are being charged up to six different types of fees on their superannuation. These fees can be opaque and hard to compare across different funds and investment options.
Read MoreThere are four steps which must be completed to successfully claim a tax deduction for your personal superannuation contributions. If one or more steps are missing or not completed, the Commissioner of Taxation has no discretion to overlook those missing or incomplete steps.
Read MoreIf a pension commences as a non-reversionary pension can that pension be made reversionary without stopping and restarting the pension? The answer is a simple and definite “Yes” if the pension is an account style pension (such as account based pensions and transition to retirement pensions) and the governing rules expressly permit pensions to be varied.
Read MoreNew research finds that customers with a guaranteed lifetime income product often have an easier time transitioning into retirement and have a better quality of life once doing so.
Read MoreIt is not possible to backdate the commencement of a pension. However, if the trustee and the member have informally agreed that a pension would commence from a particular date in a financial year (typically, 1 July for obvious reasons) and, in fact, pension payments are made in that financial year and the aggregate of the pension payments
Read MoreThere's been little debate on how spending changes as people progress through retirement. Yet, it's a critical issue as it can have a significant impact on the level of savings required at the point of retirement.
Read MoreAdvised Australians enjoy their retirement more than their unadvised counterparts, according to a new report.
Read MoreSelecting the right superannuation fund can sometimes seem like a difficult task. But when you consider that your super may ultimately have to sustain your lifestyle for more than 35 years, it's vital that you sort the wheat from the chaff.
Read MoreApart from buying a home, superannuation is likely to be the biggest investment most Australians will make in their lifetime.
It’s also one of the most tax-effective ways to save for retirement. The Government provides tax concessions for superannuation, which include concessional taxation rates for certain contributions, as well as for earnings on investments.
Read MoreThe maximum age pension rates from 20 March 2024 will be
How much money do I need in retirement? A question that would be simple to answer if not for one inconvenient nuance of retirement planning – the fact that nobody knows how long it will last. This lack of insight into our own mortality has led to the widespread adoption of the 4% rule.
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