Recently the ATO’s Acting Assistant Commissioner for Superannuation, Steve Keating, outlined the ATO’s current approach to dealing with SMSFs facing compliance issues and making voluntary disclosures. The ATO has recognised that many Australians are experiencing financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and therefore it is not pursuing its usual audit program. For [read more]
Broadly, foreign purchaser duty surcharge of 7% to 8% applies on top of the normal duty impost (typically between 5% to 6%) where a discretionary trust acquires relevant real estate and the trust is deemed to be a ‘foreign trust’ in the relevant jurisdiction. For simplicity, we refer to ‘discretionary trusts with foreign beneficiaries’ that [read more]
On 3 August 2020 the ATO released draft legislative instrument Self Managed Superannuation Funds (COVID-19 Rental income deferrals – In-house Asset Exclusion) Determination 2020 for industry consultation. The determination is intended to protect SMSF trustees from adverse compliance problems under the in-house asset rules where, due to COVID-19, a rent deferral arrangement has been put [read more]
The changes In the past few years, various jurisdictions in Australia have introduced legislation to impose duty and land tax surcharges on foreign persons, trusts and companies that purchase or hold certain types of real estate. The State Revenue Legislation Further Amendment Bill 2020 (NSW), which became law on 24 June 2020, contains amendments relating [read more]
On 1 July 2020, DBA Lawyers will make available the latest version of our SMSF governing rules for all Annual Update Service subscribers. In addition to covering all relevant legal changes (including superannuation law, case law and ATO materials), the latest version of our SMSF governing rules includes many value-added features such as new COVID-19 [read more]
The long-standing position at common law has been the formality that a deed must be written on parchment, vellum or paper. Accordingly, it has been widely accepted that a deed cannot be made electronically. The first key change to this position was in 2018 when the New South Wales (‘NSW’) government amended the Conveyancing Act [read more]
DBA Lawyers provides the best SMSF governing rules and related documents, with numerous value-added features. This article briefly explains why our SMSF documents are the best available. Recent changes to DBA Lawyers’ SMSF governing rules Our latest DBA Lawyers’ SMSF governing rules (version 2020/21) comes with the following upgrades: enhanced binding death benefit nomination (‘BDBN’) [read more]
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised various practical issues for SMSF trustees and members. Members may wish to make a binding death benefit nomination (‘BDBN’) but may be frustrated by the requirement to have two independent witnesses available as this can prove challenging, if not impossible or illegal, during these difficult and dangerous (COVID-19) times. To [read more]
Click here to provide your instructions Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an immense amount of financial stress on tenants, especially commercial tenants who have suffered a severe downturn in their businesses. As a result, many commercial tenants are approaching their landlords demanding a rent reduction and variation to their lease. Landlords may be willing, [read more]
Monitoring all developments We have been busy assisting many clients on a range of legal, tax and SMSF issues arising from COVID-19. Our team are keeping up to date with developments and revising our services and documents to adapt to the fast pace of change. We therefore wanted to keep you up to date on [read more]
