Meg's Musings – June 2024

My house is freezing and I’m stressed – must be June.

It seems so many things happen in June. We deal with the aftermath of the Federal Budget (although this year’s was pretty minor), we have countless last minute planning for clients to get in place, and if you run a business like me there are company budgets, final results and all the other noise associated with 30 June.

Although I have to admit I’m glad this happens mid year rather than December. Apparently 30 June was chosen as the financial year end by most of the colonies before Australia federated. It was for the convenience of the Parliamentarians (who drove the reporting season for the Government). No-one wanted to be working over Christmas and the summer break - so most colonies used 30 June, the middle of winter. And it stuck.

At Heffron there’s another June / July activity. For us, it’s time to get serious about our Super Intensive Day. We’ve recently opened registrations and are already seeing them flooding in. It’s great to see so many people picking the “in person” options as I know our team loves the ability to connect with clients face to face as well as the luxury of a whole extra stream of sessions that the virtual version gives us.

We’ve got a great line up of different sessions and are planning a few on the new $3m tax (Division 296). It’s difficult to know for sure whether this will actually get legislated before 30 June. While it’s a chance to get through the House of Representatives this week, there is only one more sitting week for the Senate at the end of the month and passage through there will depend on how much resistance the Greens decide to put up. I guess it’s a case of “wait and see”.

On an entirely separate topic - there were a couple of articles last week about the latest report from Investment Trends on SMSF members. Perhaps I’m joining dots I shouldn’t be but there were some interesting facts that leaped out at me.

First - SMSFs are growing more rapidly than they have in recent years (as per the ATO statistics), but the Investment Trends research suggests that when people are asked what influenced them to start one, the most common responses these days are internet research and advice of a friend (rather than accountants and advisers who were the drivers in the past). Couple this with the ATO’s recent figures on how much is being taken out of SMSFs illegally, you wonder whether there is an increasing incidence of people going into SMSFs with the sole purpose of taking their money back out again. I hope not. That’s terrible for the individuals involved. They will get caught eventually and will find themselves so harshly taxed and penalised they’ll wish they left the money alone (and they’ve trashed their retirement savings in the process). But it’s also bad for us as an industry. It invites Government or ATO interference in how SMSFs are established and operated.

Here's hoping I shouldn't be joining those dots and/or increased awareness of the consequences of taking money out of super illegally changes the behaviour of our would-be withdrawers.

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