‘Save the Date’ – the first step (of many) to access the Government’s JobKeeper payments if you are eligible is to enrol in the system and this will be available for a short window from 20 April – only 5 more sleeps!

Call us if you want to discuss eligibility, all the other steps or anything else.

Filling in a form

The ATO has issued some public comments on its website to provide guidance (and some welcome ‘slack’) in relation to SMSF compliance issues that may be impacted by the current zombie apocalypse. The two key measures are outlined below.

Temporarily reducing rent payable by related parties

Many SMSFs own property that is rented by a related party and many of those related party tenants are struggling with cash flows, including paying the rent. Normally, if a SMSF charges a related party less than market-value rent (for example because of the financial impacts of COVID-19) it is a contravention of the super fund rules. The ATO’s comment is that it will not take action in relation to the 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial years if a SMSF gives a related party tenant a temporary rent reduction during this period.

In-house asset restrictions

Normally, if a super fund’s in-house assets (loans to or investments in related parties) are more than 5% of the fund’s total assets (for example due to the recent downturn in the share market) this would be a breach of the fund’s rules. The ATO has advised that if this occurs before 30 June 2020, funds still need to prepare a written plan before 30 June 2021 to reduce the market ratio of in-house assets to 5% or below, but it will not undertake any compliance activity if the plan was unable to be executed because the market hasn’t recovered, or if the plan became unnecessary because of an upturn.

As always, please feel free to call your friendly Halletts team member if you would like to discuss.

Yellow house

As a result of significant declines in financial markets, the government has announced a reduction of 50% to the minimum pension requirements for the 2019/20 and 2020/21 financial years to assist retirees to preserve their capital and not be forced to sell more assets in the downturn.  For example, if your minimum percentage was 5%, it is now 2.5%.  This is a reduction in the minimum pensions amount only – you are still allowed to draw more!

 

This may mean you have already withdrawn your minimum pension for the current financial year and so can therefore cease withdrawing further funds…if you want to.  If you normally only make one withdrawal towards the end of the financial year, you are now only required to withdraw half the amount previously advised.

 

This link to the ATO website gives a good summary of the new measures and provides some examples to assist in understanding how it operates.

Please contact us at any time.

Calculator and money