A common frustration experienced by primary producers is that they cannot use their super savings in their business. Not being able to access your retirement savings until you are 60 (generally) and retired, can feel like you are diverting capital away from where it is needed. One way around this issue is to own farmland in your Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF).
You need an SMSF Deed that keeps pace with legislative and common law changes. A lot of the sophisticated strategies are only possible if your SMSF Deed is up-to-date and written carefully.
The trustee of your SMSF is all-powerful. The trustee decides how much money you can put in the fund, who else can join, how your money is invested, how much gets paid out to you and when, and finally who gets what’s left over when you die. So how do you ensure the trustee of your fund continues to do the right thing when you can no longer be involved? There are a number of strategies you need to have in place
Australians love their trusts. In fact, the number of active trusts in Australia is coming up to 1 million (if not there already). We use so many trusts because they are so versatile. But one problem most trusts have is that they don’t last forever, they have an ‘expiry date’. If you have a trust you should be aware of its ‘expiry date’, and if that date is fast approaching, you must plan for the end! Sometimes we find that a trust has already expired years ago, without anyone having noticed…
In South Australia stamp duty is not payable on a transfer of real property from a trustee of a trust to a person who already has a defined beneficial interest in the property. For example, a transfer of property from the trustee of a unit trust to the unit holder. But there are a couple of tricks you need to be aware of.
Everyone gets a $1.6 million cap on the assets that can support a tax-free super pension. You and your spouse each get a separate cap. But super pensions that pass to you from your spouse when they die may put you over your cap. This will have adverse tax outcomes. You need to plan for this as part of your estate planning.