The Government has announced that they will not proceed with their plan to increase the maximum number of members of SMSFs and small APRA funds from four to six.

On the superannuation front (and for SMSFs in particular), the 2019-20 Federal Budget was distinctly quiet.

If the four short paragraphs about ECPI had been included in the 2016-17 Federal Budget, the Government could have saved actuaries and software providers hundreds of thousands of dollars in software development costs.

The 2019-20 Federal Budget confirmed the changes to contribution rules announced in the Treasurer’s Press Release on 1 April.

In addition to the Government’s proposed changes to the contribution rules for older Australians and also exempt current pension income, they’ve proposed a couple of miscellaneous amendments.

All SMSFs trustees are required to appoint an approved auditor to audit the operations of their fund each year. This annual audit must include both a financial audit and compliance audit.

In the final week of Parliament, there were a number of superannuation related measures still to be passed into law.

As part of the 2018/19 Federal Budget announcements, the Government confirmed that they intend to legislate to increase the maximum number of members that can belong to a single SMSF from four to six.

In the May 2018 Federal Budget, the Government announced plans to extend the ability for recent retires to make contributions to superannuation from 1 July 2019. This change has now been legislated.

With the 1 July 2017 introduction of the $1.6m Transfer Balance Cap came a new obligation on superannuation fund trustees to report certain member “events” to the ATO.

In the May 2018 Federal Budget, the Government proposed that SMSFs with three years of clean audit reports and returns lodged in a timely manner would be eligible to move to a three-yearly audit cycle rather than being audited every year.

Prior to 1 July 2017, as a general rule, where an individual was age 60 or over and wanted to draw monies from their pension account in excess of their minimum pension requirements, the excess was simply treated as an additional pension payment.