DBA Lawyers is Australia’s leading SMSF law firm. We have been refining our SMSF deed for well over 20 years, making it the best SMSF deed available. Additionally, our SMSF deed contains numerous ‘value-added’ advantages that set it apart. Accordingly, our SMSF deed offers many benefits that are not found anywhere else. All of the [read more]
DBA Lawyers has recently been inundated with requests for up to date pension documents. Our suite of pension documents is fully up to date, including partial commutation documents with a tick-a-box option allowing the partial commutation of pension capital to just under a member’s personal transfer balance cap. Also, changes to the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) [read more]
The ATO is a large bureaucracy and produces a lot of guidance material. Generally the ATO feels bound by its published material from an administrative viewpoint. However, only certain publications bind the ATO. Thus it is important that advisers and taxpayers understand the range of material (or products) published by the ATO and the level [read more]
Co-author by Daniel Butler, Director, DBA Lawyers We have been busy making sure our SMSF documents and training are up to date with the latest super reforms and strategies. Not surprisingly we continue to come across many SMSF documents recently acquired elsewhere that have not been updated with the recent reforms. Naturally, if you are [read more]
Australian Taxation Office statistics suggest that a large majority of SMSFs have individual trustees. This is troubling, considering that sole purpose corporate SMSF trustees have been known to be superior for many years. This covers the main reasons to have a sole purpose corporate trustee. The ‘sole purpose’ indicates that the company only acts in [read more]
Daniel Butler and I are senior fellows at Melbourne Law School and lecture a subject titled LAWS70267 Taxation of Superannuation. It’s a five day intensive subject. It will next run in February 2017. We’ve been putting the finishing touches on it to ensure the subject is fully up to date for all changes including the [read more]
This article examines whether an SMSF can acquire shares offered under an employee share scheme (‘ESS’). What is an ESS? Broadly, an ESS (also known as an employee share plan or employee share ownership plan) typically gives employees the opportunity to purchase shares in their employer. Usually, employees are able to obtain more favourable terms [read more]
The ATO’s online Super Fund Lookup (www.superfundlookup.gov.au) (‘Lookup’) contains the ATO’s record of the current compliance status of SMSFs. Employers and large superannuation funds can utilise the Lookup to determine the credentials of the SMSF (eg, whether it is treated as complying) for the purposes of super contributions and rollovers. In the normal course of [read more]
The recent case of Trustees of the Property of Morris (Bankrupt) v Morris (Bankrupt) [2016] FCA 846 shows just what happens when superannuation, bankruptcy and the payment of death benefits intersect. Facts Ms Debbie Morris was married to Mr Michael Foreman. They had two children: Gracie (born in July 2011) and Wes (born in January [read more]
A disqualified person is not permitted to be an SMSF trustee. If a disqualified person knows they are disqualified and nevertheless acts as an SMSF trustee, they will be committing an offence. However, some may not realise they are a disqualified person. This discussion covers the three main ways that a person becomes a disqualified [read more]
