Key issues for trustees and members’ consideration are:

Contributions

• Check to ensure you have made the contributions you planned to make this year, particularly for those who are self-employed
• Check to ensure you will not exceed contribution limits and adjust any arrangements in place as required. The limits for the 2014/15 financial year are:

Also note that you must be under 65 years of age to be able to use the three year bring forward rule.

Pensions

• Check to ensure you have appropriately documented your pensions, and if appropriate, prepare documentation to start a pension with your accumulation balance at the start of next financial year
• Ensure you have met your minimum pension payments for the current year – this is critically important for those on transition to retirement (TTR) pensions
• For those on transition to retirement pensions who have not met a condition of release, ensure your pension payments will not exceed 10 per cent of your balance in the pension at 1 July 2014

Withdrawal and re-contribution strategy

• This is a strategy to enhance the amount of tax free benefits in your super fund and can also be used to equalise benefits between spouses. Care needs to be taken that members are eligible to withdraw lump sums from their super, and are also eligible to re-contribute the funds to superannuation.

Investment Strategy

• Trustees should review the investment strategy of their SMSF to ensure it remains appropriate to the achievement of their objectives, and that the fund carries sufficient liquid assets to meet its obligations
• Trustees should also consider the insurance requirements of members as part of the review of the SMSF investment strategy

The annual health check of your SMSF is best practice. It not only ensures the SMSF continues to be beneficial to your wealth management, but that as trustees, you are also appropriately addressing your obligations.

At Hewison Private Wealth, we are currently reviewing all of our client’s SMSF arrangements and, where required, will be providing advice prior to the end of financial year to ensure all arrangements are appropriate.

The above article is general advice only and does not take into account your own personal needs and objectives. You should seek advice from an appropriately qualified professional prior to acting upon any of the statements included in this article.