You’d think after working in the SMSF arena for nearly 30 years not much would surprise me any more. But I have to confess, I was surprised when the Government suddenly folded to the Greens’ demand for an end to SMSF borrowing, with no consultation, no transition period and no clear policy logic.
Whatever you might think of LRBAs, there’s no doubt that this sudden switch in the rules will have a devastating impact on some people. We have heard from clients who’ve finally completed the process of setting up a fund, making their rollovers in order to buy residential property under an LRBA only to be ruled out unless they can find a suitable property before 10 August. Or clients who had just sold a property, intending to borrow to buy another facing the same time pressure.
Even if you passionately support the ban, surely a longer lead in period was reasonable?
I suspect that for many accountants and advisers, it became just one more thing that contributed to the end of financial year chaos. And of course now we welcome a new financial year, bringing Payday Super and Division 296 tax. In addition, we’ll need to recalibrate our understanding of super vs non super to reflect changes in capital gains tax and negative gearing for 1 July 2027 and taxation of trusts for 1 July 2028. It seems 2026/27 will be anything but boring.
Within Heffron’s Education Team, the focus is now on making sense of all that for our Super Intensive Days. Pretty soon, the content will be due and we’ll be gearing up for one of our favourite events of the year.
Here’s hoping the Government doesn’t decide to make another major change to super on the eve of our first event in Melbourne (26 August). Trust me, it’s happened before. Fellow old-timers will remember the enormity of the super changes announced in the May 2006 Federal Budget that took effect from 1 July 2007. (For youngsters among you, this was the “Simpler Super” program that made super tax free after 60, scrapped reasonable benefit limits and profoundly changed contribution caps.). Back in those days, conference materials were printed and handed out on the day. I still remember the feeling of receiving the freshly printed and bound materials for our first Super Intensive Day in February 2007, all about Simpler Super, just as a major (50+ pages) series of updates were released.
I hope I haven’t just jinxed myself.
In the meantime, we’ve been enjoying leveraging some of the new capability we have at our disposal following a major upgrade to our education platform earlier this year. In particular, it’s far easier now for us to get small courses out and in your hands quickly – last month we launched our Payday super course (Heffron - Education: Payday super for SMSF professionals) and this month we’re featuring “Bring forward rules for non-concessional contributions” (Bring forward rules for non-concessional contributions). This is one of my personal favourites as the bring forward rules are so valuable and yet come with some bizarre quirks. As you might expect, it’s just been updated for new caps and thresholds from 1 July 2026.
We’re also conscious that this is a time some of you really focus on your SMSF learning so we’ve extended our “end of financial year” specials until 15 July. These include some great offers on our longer courses (known as our “Super Extension” and “Super Specialist” series) - Heffron - Courses.