Get ready to get ahead at tax time
Achieving tax efficiencies and making the most of your personal or business cashflow is all part of well-considered financial planning. However, you’ll need to plan ahead at tax time.
SMSF: Properly PREPARED for June 30, or will you just WING IT?
When it comes to SMSFs and your end of financial year obligations you could try to wing it by yourself but you might find yourself facing a raft of ATO imposed penalties.
Make hay while the sun shines
If you have put your super planning ‘out to pasture’ due to the competing demands on excess cash associated with running a family farming business, your super balance may not be in tip-top shape.
But making contributions to super just got a whole lot easier… You can now ‘carry-forward’ unused pre-tax contribution amounts from 1 July 2018, allowing you to catch-up your unused super contributions for up to five years. Coupled with the existing rule allowing you to ‘bring forward’ your after-tax contributions to super, you now have real opportunity to boost your super to build your savings for your retirement.
Federal Budget 2017
On Tuesday 9 May, the Federal Government handed down its Budget for the 2017–18 financial year. According to Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison, this year’s Budget is founded on the principles of fairness, security and opportunity. Mr Morrison claims that the government’s proposed measures will raise almost $21 billion in revenue over the next four years,…
Contributions – what the changed concessional and non-concessional caps may mean for you
With many of the changes announced in the 2016 Federal Budget now passed by Parliament, there is an amount of certainty that you can have when approaching your SMSF planning and the contributions you might wish to make to your SMSF. The Government is lowering both the concessional (pre-tax) and non-concessional (after-tax) contribution limits from…
Retirement from Farming and Rural Businesses
While it’s easy to be consumed by the everyday demands of working in your rural business, the importance of planning your financial future, including selling your rural business and planning your retirement should never be underestimated. The importance of early planning As a financial adviser who has worked with farming families for more than 30…
Some interesting facts about retirement
While we are on the topic of retirement, it is worth considering these interesting and sometimes surprising facts about retirement. The pension age is set to rise. By 2035, you’ll need to be 70 before you can qualify for the Age Pension.[1] What does Australia’s ageing population mean for your retirement? In the next 20…
Government delivers significant changes to superannuation in its 2016-17 Federal Budget
A reduction in concessional contribution caps, the lowering of the Division 293 tax threshold, capping tax-free assets in retirement and a lifetime limit for non-concessional contributions are just some of the changes that were in the Budget announcements this year to impact superannuation. These changes may impact your SMSF and retirement planning and require you…
Are you really ready to retire? And will you be able to pay for it?
In the next 20 years potentially over 100,000 more people will retire each year. In the last financial year alone the number of people over 65 years of age had increased by over 100,000.[1] Further, the Intergenerational Report released by the Federal government in 2015, estimates that the number of Australians over 65 will double…
Who is the Beneficiary of your Super Fund?
When was the last time you looked at your superannuation statement and checked who would receive the funds if you were to pass away? Planning so that the proceeds of your superannuation are distributed in accordance with your wishes is a relatively simple matter, yet it is often overlooked. This is especially important if your…