The legislation for the Government’s changes to the superannuation system has been passed by parliament. 

On the 26th October 2016 Sladen Legal’s Phil Broderick was invited to present a paper at The Tax Institute 2016 VIC Property Intensive event. 

The Government’s second tranche of super changes include the draft laws for the 5 year concessional contributions cap “catch up measure”. 

The Government has released its second tranche of superannuation budget measures.

The Government has released the draft rules for the $1.6 million super pension cap in its second tranche of super measures. The measure to be known as the “transfer balance cap” is to commence from 1 July 2017.  

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has released Taxation Determination TD 2016/16 which provides further guidance on its view as to the application of the non-arm’s length income (NALI) rules to the non-commercial limited recourse borrowing arrangement (LRBA) loans from related parties to the trustees of self managed superannuation funds (SMSF). 

Sladen Snippet – Government dumps lifetime $500K NCC cap.  Alternative measures announced

The federal government has released for consultation the first tranche of super changes announced in the 2016 federal budget. 

On 6 September, 2016 Sladen Legal delivered an event titled Complex estate planning in a complex world.

In it the following issues were examined:

Sladen Legal’s Phil Broderick was invited to present at The Tax Institute’s National Superannuation Conference. His topic was titled “SMFSs and Dividend Stripping and Dividend Washing Arrangements”.

Sladen Snippet – ATO gives further guidance on its 2016/17 priorities for SMSFs and recent enforcement actions

The Supreme Court of New South Wales, in the decision of Bideena Pty Ltd as trustee for the Bideena Pty Ltd Superannuation Fund, has confirmed that the trustee of a SMSF does not always require judicial advice as to whether the trustee will have a right to indemnify itself out of the SMSF assets for legal costs in pursuing litigation.

In a recent speech, James O’Halloran, Deputy Commissioner of Superannuation, Australian Taxation Office (ATO), announced that the ATO will focus on the following self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) issues during 2016/17:

Recent correspondence from the United Kingdom’s revenue authority (HMRC) has confirmed that the HMRC will not register a self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) as a Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme (QROPS) unless the SMSF trust deed limits the membership to persons who are aged 55+.

The Federal Court ordered that a self managed superannuation fund (SMSF) trustee pay a fine of $40K and the ATO’s costs of $14K for various loans made by the SMSF trustee in breach of the super laws.

The recent Federal Court decision of Ievers v Superannuation Complaints Tribunal considered the question of whether a de facto relationship had ended for the purpose of determining who should receive a super death benefit.

Sladen Legal’s Phil Broderick was recently invited to present at the Television Education Network’s 4th Annual SMSF Audit Conference. His topic was titled “Recent Tax and Regulatory Developments Affecting SMSF Audit”. 

In in an unheralded move, the Victorian government has extended the land tax exemption for primary production land in an urban zone (contained in section 67 of the Land Tax Act 2005) to include land owned by a trustee of a super fund of which all the members or beneficiaries are relatives and at least one of those members or beneficiaries is normally engaged in a substantially full-time capacity in the business of primary production of the type carried on on the land.

In an update on our previous Sladen Snippets (see here and here), the ATO has announced that the date for rectifying non-commercial related party limited recourse borrowing arrangement (LRBA) loans made to SMSF trustees has been extended from 30 June 2016 to 31 January 2017. 

Further to our snippet in April the changes to the public trading trust rules have passed into law.