By Shaun Backhaus ([email protected]), Lawyer and Daniel Butler([email protected]), Director DBA Lawyers In our previous article on AFCA we explained the background to AFCA’s establishment, what disputes it would apply to and how it would differ from the external dispute resolution schemes it replaced, such as the Financial Ombudsman Service. For further information please refer to [read more]
William Fettes ([email protected]), Senior Associate and Daniel Butler ([email protected]), Director, DBA Lawyers This article summarises the transfer balance account report (‘TBAR’) reporting regime for SMSFs and offers some traps and tips. Overview Under TBAR, any transaction involving a retirement phase pension (ie, tax free pension interest such as an account-based pension or a transition to [read more]
By Shaun Backhaus, Lawyer and Daniel Butler, Director DBA Lawyers Financial Ombudsman Service The Financial Ombudsman Service (‘FOS’) is an industry body that resolves disputes between consumers and financial services providers that are members which operate in Australia. FOS is self-regulated by industry members with its costs met by the financial services providers. FOS’s dispute resolution [read more]
Daniel Butler, Director and Bryce Figot, Special Counsel, DBA Lawyers Payments above the account-based pension (‘ABP’) minimum annual payment have the potential to become a trap. The June 2017 SMSF Benchmark Report by Class Super states that ‘the average SMSF pensioner withdraws about $74,000 annually on their pension over a series of 12 transactions and [read more]
OVERVIEW This article highlights some of the issues that accountants that have decided not to obtain an Australian financial services licence (‘AFSL’) or become an authorised representative (‘AR’) of an AFSL holder need to consider in view of the removal of the recognised accountants’ exemption from 1 July 2016. In addition, this article is also [read more]
The new AFSL regime for accountants and advisers without a licence starts today! For many SMSF advisers this means big changes to their business procedures. For those SMSF professionals who are not obtaining a limited AFS licence and who are not becoming an authorised representative of an AFSL holder, it will become vital to properly [read more]
Overview The Financial Ombudsman Service (‘FOS’) is the main external disputes resolution (‘EDR’) for accountants and financial advisers who have an Australian Financial Services Licence (‘AFSL’). Advisers who have an AFSL must be a party to an EDR process. Where an adviser is an authorised representative of another entity’s AFSL, they are subject to the [read more]
I have recently presented many seminars around Australia on whether an accountant requires an Australian Financial Services Licence (‘Licence’) after 30 June 2016. The interest and feedback gathered from this round of seminars has been very insightful. While the actual number of limited Licences that have been issued to date by ASIC is still relatively [read more]
