Every member of a self-managed super fund must also be a trustee of the fund, or a director of its corporate trustee. Before you set up a fund or add a new member, it pays to check that everyone is eligible. Getting this wrong can stall your registration or expose you to penalties. Meet the...

Are you an employee thinking of putting some of your pre-tax income into superannuation to boost your retirement savings? This is known as salary sacrifice, and the good news is that it can benefit you and your employer. What is salary sacrifice? An effective salary sacrifice agreement (SSA) involves you as an employee, agreeing in...

Have you ever wondered how much superannuation you will have and need in retirement? The answer is it depends on a range of factors, such as your lifestyle goals, whether you have paid off your mortgage, your financial situation, whether you live a relatively healthy lifestyle, your likely life expectancy, and so on. How much...

Knowing what your self managed super fund (SMSF) assets are worth has always mattered. It matters even more if your balance is approaching or is over $3 million. A new super tax and updated rules mean that getting your valuations right can affect how much tax you pay. A new tax on large super balances...

With a new tax on large super balances many people are asking where the best place is to grow wealth for retirement. The answer for many people is that super remains a great place to grow wealth. In fact, super may now be more attractive than ever before. The change that affects super From 1...

Self-managed super funds are generally not allowed to borrow money. A limited recourse borrowing arrangement, or LRBA, is one of the few exceptions. It lets a fund borrow to buy a single asset, with the lender’s rights limited to that asset alone. If the loan goes bad, the lender can take the asset but cannot...

If bankruptcy is on the horizon, one of the first questions people ask is what happens to their super. The answer turns on timing, the type of contribution, and how you draw on the fund. The general rule Money sitting in a regulated super fund is protected from your bankruptcy trustee. Creditors cannot touch it,...

If you’re setting up a self-managed super fund (SMSF), or already have one, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is who acts as trustee. The fund can either have individual trustees (the members themselves) or a corporate trustee (a company, with the members as its directors). Many SMSFs now use a corporate trustee...

As an SMSF trustee, you’re responsible for making sure your fund complies with superannuation laws. One of the most important rules is simple: your super must be preserved until you meet a condition of release. Accessing your super too early might seem tempting in tough times, but doing so can be illegal and carry serious...

Most people know roughly how much they have in super. Far fewer know the one number that can determine which contribution strategies are available to them. That number is your total super balance (TSB). Your TSB is the combined value of all your super interests across all your super funds. In simple terms, it is...