Meg's Musings – November 2022

Well as we flagged in our articles at the time, October’s Federal Budget was a quiet affair for SMSFs but perhaps to be expected. 

While the new Government has definitely sent plenty of signals about budget repair and needing to make tough decisions, the decision makers obviously decided that now was not the moment to announce a superannuation shake up. But if my newsfeed is anything to go by, the rhetoric has ramped up in recent days. Perhaps this will come in May 2023.

The most exciting thing for us at Heffron in the October Federal Budget was actually nothing to do with superannuation at all. Rather, it was the $1.1m in funding (over four years) announced for the Kaden Centre – a not for profit cancer exercise oncology clinic based in Newcastle that we support. This was great recognition for the amazing work the Centre does and will support them in re-opening their services to pre-covid levels. The timing also coincided with the end of our fund raising walkathon for the Kaden Centre which ran throughout October. Thank you so much to those of you who sponsored one of our various teams, you helped us add to their coffers.

The most disappointing thing in the Federal Budget still rankles with me - the complete silence on the legacy pension amnesty. I know I’ve already said my piece on this in our article on the night (read it here) but it is incredibly disappointing to think we might need to start again in advocating for very sensible reform here. It took years to get the former Government motivated to make a change and it seems we’re no closer. Currently we’re in the ridiculous position where those with particularly large legacy pensions do have some options to wind them down (albeit at a cost that wouldn’t apply if the amnesty was introduced) while those with much smaller balances remain stuck. I can’t imagine the Government would like to think that their “do nothing” approach is giving wealthier clients choices but still hurting less wealthy clients. But that’s exactly where we are.

This will be our last Heffron Highlights for 2022 (frightening thought). In December we are kicking off our most popular email series from last year – our 12 Days of Christmas where we pair some great superannuation / SMSF content with something tasty. If you enjoyed this last year and have friends or colleagues who would like to be included this year, please don’t hesitate to direct them to our website where they will be prompted to sign up for our email updates. As you can imagine, the Heffron technical team is busily putting the work into creating the new articles, flyers, trustee guides and more that will come as part of this series. If you have something you’d desperately like to see covered, now is the time to reach out to someone in our team to make sure it’s on the list.