Superannuation

Australians are notoriously underinsured, so it’s reassuring to know that affordable, tax-effective life insurance could be as near as your super fund. Most super funds offer members at least a basic level of personal insurance cover, and holding your insurance within super – rather than in stand-alone policies – can have its benefits. The article covers the following:

– Tax efficient insurance premiums
– Cost savings
– Automatic cover
– Insurance payouts
– Tax implications
– Will it be enough?
– Erosion of retirement savings

A recent Anti Detriment benefit provided a client with an additional $45,000 from her late husband’s Navigator Portfolio in addition to his account balance, providing her some financial comfort during this difficult time.

Anti Detriment benefits are not new, however the majority of superannuation funds continue to ignore this important estate planning feature available to their members. Anti Detriment is a refund of all tax on contributions paid by a member during the period of their superannuation. This also includes previous super history if your fund has been rolled over to Navigator.

Superannuation contributions generally fall into the category of either Non Concessional (no tax deduction is sought) or Concessional (a tax deduction has been sought). The following table helps illustrate the allowable contributions to super dependent on age.

Any excess contributions incur additional tax payable of up to 46.5%. To ensure this additional tax is not payable please check contributions made in the past 2 financial years to any superannuation accounts in your name. It is important to note the contribution limits apply to your total number of super funds not per individual account.

To help you decide whether you’re ready to quit working and how much you will need, Bina Brown does the sums.

So you think you may be ready to retire. Before you swap your office garb for the gardening gear, you may need to think about the timing, among other things.

Yes, by all means start a TTR pension. And, yes, you can recontribute the money back into your super, where it will go into an accumulation account, separate from your pension account.

I suggest you open a second bank account within your super fund to take your recontributions and thus segregate the two. You can also salary sacrifice into this account.

Millions of Australians nearing retirement age know little about superannuation and are confused by its basic terminology, a survey has found.

A Suncorp Life survey found that one in three people between 50 and 64 did not know the definition of the term transition to retirement.

Some interesting statistics were released from ASFA’s annual research into community attitudes to superannuation.

Over two thirds of Australians believe that the 9% Superannuation Guarantee (SG) is not enough to fund an adequate retirement.

WHEN it comes to the extra product offerings available through superannuation, few are aware of increased super lump-sum death benefits.

They are otherwise known as anti-detriment payments. As such, they do not realise that in the unfortunate case of death, it provides a great opportunity to boost the benefit that will be paid to your dependants.

So what exactly is this form of payment and how can you ensure eligibility?

Readers’ emails are a good indication of what worries people most. The dominant theme for 2010 is impending change. In nine months we have seen the release of the Ripoll report into financial planning, the Henry tax review and the Cooper review into superannuation.

Add to this a sharemarket that started with a bang but soon lost impetus, tighter lending to some businesses and a housing market that is one of the most expensive in the world. Charles Darwin came up with the answer years ago: ”It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives – it is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”