June 2020 - Practical Systems Super

Property and my SMSF

Jun 3,2020 Comments Off

Directly held property makes up approximately 19% of all SMSF assets, indicating that many SMSF trustees consider it’s an important and significant part of a diversified portfolio. There are numerous strategies and ways for property to form part of an SMSF’s investments and each must be carefully considered.

Investment strategy first!

Before any investment decision, it is imperative and a legal requirement that you as an SMSF trustee must consider your investment strategy. Your strategy should detail such things as how much exposure you would like to the property market, the form of exposure and how appropriate it is for your current circumstances. A well-diversified portfolio is essential to provide income for retirement and spread investment risk so that any single asset class, such as property, does not dominate your SMSF risk and returns.

Direct investment

A common form of property exposure is direct investment into a property. This can be in the form of either a residential property or commercial property. When purchasing a property with an SMSF’s cash there are some important considerations that must be worked through including:

Your asset allocation and diversification.
Potential rental income and property expenses.
How close you are to retirement and the need for liquid assets to pay pensions.
Unless the property is a business real property (BRP) you or your related parties cannot use the property:
- If the property is BRP you may be able to work from the premises which is owned by your SMSF.
- You may also be able to utilise the small business CGT concessions and contribution limits.

Limited Recourse Borrowing Arrangements (LRBA)

SMSFs may also invest in property through an LRBA. These are complex borrowing structures which allows SMSF trustees to take out a loan from a third party lender. The SMSF trustee then uses these funds to purchase a property to be held on trust. The lender only has recourse to the property held in the trust – this is why the loan is “limited recourse”.

An LRBA should only be utilised when it is the right structure for your SMSF on the basis of SMSF Specialist advice. Some very important considerations in addition to the ones above include:

Can your SMSF maintain the loan repayments over a long period of time considering asset returns, interest rates, liquidity, and contributions caps?
Evaluating set-up costs and structures.
Is your property valuation accurate?
You cannot use borrowed money to improve the asset or change the nature of the property at any time.
Do you meet the strict bank lending requirements?
- Typically, lenders require the SMSF to have a minimum of net assets of $200,000 or more and for the loan to have a loan to value ratio below 70%.

Indirect investment

Another way to gain exposure to property for SMSFs is through indirect investment. This can include listed invested vehicles such as, listed investment companies and exchange traded. Managed investment trusts are also a common investment for SMSFs to gain exposure to property. Investing indirectly may suit your SMSF needs more than a purchase of a property because it is relatively simple and most likely will not require a large amount of capital. It also allows your SMSFs to get exposure to large value properties such as office blocks, shopping centres and industrial properties that would otherwise be out of reach. Investing in these products should be accompanied by SMSF Specialist advice.

Source: SMSF Association

Have you considered what you will do if an unexpected event occurs?

Jun 3,2020 Comments Off

Your SMSF is a long-term plan. Much can happen during this time including illness, incapacity or death of a member.

It is best practice to have contingency plans in place to deal with unexpected events. For example, if a fund member dies, leaving you as the sole member are you happy to continue with the SMSF?

Outlined are some issues to consider planning for as trustees. Leaving the planning to when, and if an event happens may be too late.

Death – Think about where you want your superannuation to go on your death. Given the introduction of the $1.6 million transfer balance cap which means larger sums of money may need to leave the superannuation system sooner, planning has never been more important. You may need to think carefully about who receives your superannuation on death to maximise its benefit for your beneficiaries.

The rules of your SMSF, as set out in your trust deed and related documents, determine how the trustee structure is to be reconstructed on the death of a member as well as how death benefits are to be handled by you and your fund.

A lot of careful consideration needs to be given to understanding the member’s wishes to ensure that your fund’s trust deed and broader governing rules are drafted appropriately to achieve these requirements.

Legal tools to help direct your superannuation can include making a binding death benefit nomination to nominate who will receive your superannuation on your death or providing for your pension to continue (or revert) to a permitted beneficiary (such as your spouse) following your death.

You may also consider appointing a corporate trustee. If the membership of an SMSF with individual trustees changes, the names on the funds’ ownership documents must also change. This can be costly and time-consuming.

A corporate trustee will continue to control an SMSF and its assets after the death or incapacity of a member. This is a significant succession-planning issue for an SMSF as well as for the estate-planning of its members.

Diminished capacity – Consider the consequences if you become unable to act as trustee (e.g., due to mental incapacity). You can appoint an enduring power of attorney to act in your place as trustee, if required. This is someone who can be trusted to handle your financial affairs and can be appointed as trustee of the SMSF.

Member leaves – How would your SMSF be affected if one or more of the fund members decided to exit the fund? For example, an SMSF heavily weighted in real estate may have to sell the asset, or introduce a new fund member to allow the exiting member to transfer out of the fund.

Separating couple – Family law contains a number of options for superannuation to be split between a couple who separate or divorce. Your superannuation is treated separately to your other property, so specialist advice may be needed.

Reviewing your insurance – SMSF trustees should regularly review insurance as part of preparing your investment strategy. This includes considering whether or not insurance cover should be held for each SMSF member. Your insurance cover may be essential if an unexpected event occurs.

In some circumstances, you may already be holding insurance through membership of a large super fund. This policy may exist due to an employment arrangement and may be more cost-effective than an equivalent valued policy that you could hold within an SMSF. However, not all insurance policies are the same, so seeking advice will help you to understand your needs.

Administration of your SMSF – If an unexpected event happens you may need to consider winding up the fund if managing the fund will be too time-consuming, onerous or costly for the remaining members.

As annual SMSF running costs generally remain fixed, your superannuation balance may fall to a level where it is not cost-effective to remain in an SMSF – at this point, it may be appropriate to transfer out of the fund (e.g., to a retail or industry fund).

Source: SMSF Association

When did you last review your SMSF’s investment strategy?

Jun 3,2020 Comments Off

You may be aware that the Australian Tax Office (ATO) has issued letters to nearly 18,000 SMSF trustees as part of a campaign to ensure trustees are aware of their investment obligations.

Of key concern is ensuring that trustees have considered diversification and liquidity of their assets when formulating and executing their fund’s investment strategy.

Importantly, it must be noted that the ATO letters are not an attempt to regulate and limit the control and freedom that SMSF trustees have but rather ensuring that if trustees wish to invest their assets in a certain way that they must clearly articulate their reasons for doing so.

An investment strategy should be considering the SMSF’s blueprint when dealing with the fund’s assets to ensure the SMSF’s investment objectives and members’ goals are met. It provides the parameters to ensure you invest your money in accordance with that strategy. This is where the ATO has a primary function to ensure that trustees act in accordance with these obligations.

An SMSF investment strategy must take into account the following items:

The risks involving in making, holding and realising the SMSFs investments, their expected return and cash flow requirements of your SMSF.
The diversification and composition of your SMSF investments.
The liquidity of your SMSF investments, having regard to expected cash flow requirements.
The SMSFs ability to pay your current and future liabilities, including benefits to the members.
Considering whether to hold insurance cover for each member of your SMSF.

An important requirement for you as trustee of your SMSF is to have an investment objective and a strategy to achieve that objective in place, before you start to make decisions about how you want to invest your SMSF money.

Of equal importance is that the investment objective and strategy is not set in stone. You can choose to change the investment objectives you have set for your SMSF at any time.

It’s not uncommon for SMSFs with lower member balances to find diversification a challenge as there is limited money to invest. Nonetheless, you are still required to demonstrate that you adequately understand and mitigate the associated investment risks.

If you find yourself in this position, it is important your investment strategy reflects these risks.

For example, if you have invested in a large illiquid asset such as real property which may form the majority of your fund, it is timely to ensure your strategy reflects the concentration and liquidity risk associated with this investment.

Where you have in place an adequate investment strategy that deals with these risks and can provide the necessary evidence to support your investment decisions, no further action is expected.

Where your fund has not complied with its investment strategy requirements under superannuation law, you may be liable to administrative penalties being imposed by the ATO, as Regulator of the SMSF sector.

Your investment strategy does need to be reviewed at least once a year and this will be evidenced by your approved SMSF auditor. It is also important to review your strategy whenever the circumstances of any of your members change or as often as you feel it is necessary. The following practical tips will help you keep on top of your obligations:

Put your investment objective and strategy in writing
Set an investment objective that you can comfortable achieve with the underlying investments you are comfortable to invest in
There is no template for an investment object and strategy, but make sure they reflect how you intent to invest your SMSF money
The investments you actually make must be accommodated by the investment strategy you have set
Most importantly, document your actions and decisions, as well as your reasons, and keep them as a record in order to demonstrate that you have indeed satisfied your obligations as a trustee in this important area

Source: SMSF Association

Personal Superannuation Contributions – 10% rule repealed

Jun 3,2020 Comments Off

With the end of the financial year fast approaching, it is time to start thinking about income tax deductions.

Under the new Government changes to super, effective 1 July 2017, the 10% maximum earnings condition for personal superannuation contributions was removed for the 2017-18 and future financial years.

This rule provided that an individual must have earned less than 10% of their income from their employment related activities to be able to deduct a personal contribution.

This change ensures that individuals receiving employment income are not dependant on whether their employers offer salary sacrifice arrangements. Self-employed individuals and individuals in receipt of passive income can make deductible personal contributions regardless of the amount of salary or wages they earn.

This means most individuals under 75 years old can now claim a tax deduction for personal contributions to their SMSF (including those aged 65 to 74 who meet the work test).

Before the end of the financial year you need to:

Review if you have income available to contribute to your SMSF.
Review your total concessional contributions to ensure they are below the annual cap of $25,000.
Review any current salary sacrifice arrangement you may have for its necessity and benefits.

To be eligible for the deduction, you need to provide a valid notice of intention to deduct and have received acknowledgement of this notice from the fund.

Splitting amounts to your spouse

If you are planning to split all or part of your personal contributions with your spouse, you should give your trustee the notice of intent to claim a deduction first.

If your trustee has accepted your application to split your contributions, they cannot accept the notice to claim a deduction.

This change may require you to adjust your contribution strategies going forward.

This will most likely be the case if you are under 75 and the previous 10% rule prohibited you from making personal superannuation contributions.

Source: SMSF Association

Is your SMSF diversified?

Jun 2,2020 Comments Off

SMSF trustees need to truly understand diversification and better diversify their portfolios.

The benefits of a well-diversified portfolio are numerous but the key ones that SMSF trustees should focus on are the benefits of mitigating volatility and short-term downside investment risks, preserving capital and the long-run benefits of higher overall returns. By spreading an SMSF’s investments across different asset classes and markets offering different risks and returns, SMSFs can better position themselves for a secure retirement.

However, did you know that 82% of SMSF trustees believe that diversification is important but in practice many do not achieve it?

This is because half the SMSF population cite barriers to achieving diversification. The top being that it is not a primary goal for SMSF trustees, and they believe they have a lack of funds to implement it.

Furthermore, 36% of SMSF trustees say they have made a significant (10%) asset allocation change to their SMSF over the last 12 months. This demonstrates that SMSFs may not be actively restructuring their portfolio on an annual basis to respond to changing market conditions.

Another clear problem regarding diversification is the amount of SMSFs with half or more of their SMSF invested in a single investment. SMSF trustees say they primarily invest in shares to achieve diversification in their SMSF, while just a quarter say they invest in at least four asset classes to achieve this.

The bias and significant allocation to domestic SMSF equities conversely may highlight the fact that SMSFs are not adequately diversified, especially across international markets and other asset classes.

So what can you do?

Some of the steps you, with the help of an SMSF Specialist, can take to diversify your retirement savings and control your investments in a disciplined and planned way include:

Ensuring there is a clear and demonstrable retirement purposes in the choices you make.
Ensuring you have an investment objective and a strategy to achieve that objective in place.
Reviewing your portfolio and assessing it against the objectives you have set as often as you feel is necessary.
Minimising concentration to any one asset class.
Ensuring your Australian share portfolio is sufficiently diversified.
Considering the benefits of geographic diversification.
Ensuring your cash allocation is appropriate.
Considering the benefits of exchange traded funds, listed investment companies and other digital investment platforms that allow low cost access to different markets.

Always remember to document your actions and decisions, as well as your reasons, and keep them as a record in order to demonstrate that you have satisfied your obligations as a trustee.

Given the importance of having an appropriately diversified portfolio and its impacts on quality of life in retirement trustees ought to consider professional assistance in managing this important aspect of an SMSF.

Source: SMSF Association

Superannuation death benefit limitations

Jun 2,2020 Comments Off

As an SMSF trustee, you need to take special care when paying death benefits as you are responsible for ensuring that the payment rules are met. Strict rules apply, affecting who can receive a death benefit, the form in which the death benefit can be paid and the timing of such a payment.

Firstly, death benefits can only be paid either to dependants of the deceased member or the estate of the deceased.

Second, the law limits the group of dependants who are eligible to receive a pension on the death of the deceased member.

Finally, trustees must pay a death benefit as soon as possible after the death of the member. Additionally, each death benefit interest can only be paid to each dependant as either:

a maximum of two lump sums (an interim and final lump sum), or
a pension or pensions in retirement phase, or
a combination of both.

It is the limit of a maximum of two death benefit lump sums per dependant that trustees need to keep track of to ensure that the cashing rules are not inadvertently breached, especially where the death benefit is being paid as a pension.

Given the account-based nature of death benefit pensions that can be paid by an SMSF trustee, an SMSF member is generally afforded the flexibility to nominate to convert a death benefit pension into a lump sum payment. This process is generally referred to as the commutation of a pension although may be subject to specific restrictions found in a trust deed.

A partial commutation is where the beneficiary requests to withdraw a lump sum amount less than their total pension entitlement, allowing their death benefit pension to continue. This is common where members withdraw their required minimum drawdown as a pension with any additional income needs met by accessing multiple lump sums from their pension account. This strategy allows the death benefit pension to continue without breaching the superannuation death benefit rules, despite payments in excess of the maximum two lump sum limit.

A full commutation will result in the death benefit pension ceasing at the time the member decides to withdraw their entire pension entitlement as a lump sum. Despite the number of lump sum death benefits previously received, the law allows the beneficiary to roll over the lump sum resulting from a full commutation to another superannuation fund for immediate cashing as a new death benefit pension.

However, where a lump sum resulting from the full commutation of a death benefit pension is paid out of the superannuation system, further clarity is being sought from the ATO to ascertain whether or not this will be treated as an additional lump sum death benefit that would count towards the maximum two lump sum cashing limit. Until further clarity is provided by the ATO, caution needs to be exercised before a death benefit pension is fully commuted and paid to the dependant, especially where the dependant has previously received a lump sum death benefit.

As an SMSF trustee, you need to be aware of the restrictions placed on the payment of death benefits to eligible dependants of a deceased member. Trustees who ignore these limitations risk breaching superannuation standards and potentially being liable to be fined by the Regulator.

Source: SMSF Association

COVID-19: Providing concessions for the LRBA in my SMSF

Jun 2,2020 Comments Off

The economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis are causing significant financial distress for many businesses and individuals.

If your SMSF has a related party loan and is impacted due to the financial effects of COVID-19, you may be able to provide your LRBA with relief under an agreed commercial arrangement.

Ordinarily, not paying market interest rates in an SMSF is usually a breach of superannuation laws. However, the ATO have provided guidance which allows SMSFs with an LRBA to negotiate a reduction in or waiver of interest payments because of the financial impacts of the COVID-19.

If the repayment relief reflects similar terms to what commercial banks are currently offering for real estate investment loans as a result of COVID-19, the ATO will accept the parties are dealing at arm’s length and the NALI provisions do not apply.

What do you need to do?

There are some important things you should ensure are in place when you are providing a loan concession, especially when this is a related party.

Ensure the relief only applies to the related party loan
- Any relief offered on the loan can only relate to that loan agreement. The ATO concession does not extend to other loans.

Ensure that the concessions are temporary.
- This means it should have an agreed period of time or agreed date where the concessions are reviewed in light of the economic circumstances.

The financial difficulty faced by the SMSF is linked to the financial impacts of COVID-19.
- Any negotiated concession will need to be measured against the COVID-19 financial impact suffered by your SMSF.

Clear arrangements which detail the amount of discount, waiver or deferral of the concession.
- In evidencing that the concession is reasonable, it would be best practice if it is consistent with an approach taken by an arm’s length loan.
- For example, terms currently include temporary repayment deferrals for most businesses of up to 6 months, with unpaid interest being capitalised on the loan.
- It is also expected that there is evidence that interest continues to accrue on the loan and that the SMSF trustee will catch up any outstanding principal and interest repayments as soon as possible.

Ensure you have proper documentation which allows your independent auditor to be satisfied that the concession satisfies all of the above.
- This may take the form of a signed minute, renewed loan agreement or anything deemed appropriate to amend the terms of the loan.
- The parties to the arrangement must also document the change in terms to the loan agreement and the reasons why those terms have changed.
- Even if you are both the lessor and lessee, the above should all be documented.

These are extraordinary times and the ATO is providing this guidance to allow SMSF trustees to be flexible and agile.

If trustees act in good faith in implementing a reasonable and measured reduction concession because of the impacts of COVID-19 they should not fall foul of the law.

Source: SMSF Association

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Archive June 3, 2020

Property and my SMSF

Have you considered what you will do if an unexpected event occurs?

When did you last review your SMSF’s investment strategy?

Personal Superannuation Contributions – 10% rule repealed

Is your SMSF diversified?

Superannuation death benefit limitations

COVID-19: Providing concessions for the LRBA in my SMSF