BDO national leader of superannuation Shirley Schaefer says in order to get the capital gains tax concessions on assets, the SMSF needed to have been in pension phase by 9 November 2016.
“So if, funnily enough, everyone starts a pension on the 8th of November, I’m sure the ATO will be concerned that really you’ve gone back and backdated that documentation, rather than having actually commenced a pension,” Ms Schaefer told SMSF Adviser.
Ms Schaefer said this doesn’t mean there weren’t people who legitimately did start pensions between 1 July 2016 and 9 November 2016, but the ATO will be monitoring how many people did actually start pensions in the week before 9 November.
“You were either in pension phase then or you weren’t. It’s not really a case of, ‘Well I should have been so I will be’,” she said.
“There may be some SMSF practitioners out there who aren’t strong or insistent with clients about this sort of stuff.”
quote “but the ATO will be monitoring how many people did actually start pensions in the week before 9 November” ….. err how does ATO do that?
Where does it actually say that you have to be in pension phase as at 9th November 16 to apply transitional CGT relief? Sure if the segregated approach was being used then this is a given. But what about pooled funds or even a TTR commenced post 9/11/16.
This is why pre-EOFY meetings are so important. Ensure minimums have been taken, salary sacrifice reviewed and fill requests for reset or new pensions as of 1 July. No use in waiting until financials completed up to 9 months later to make decisions.
Bit of a hard time proving that they weren’t in pension phase if they are drawing only a yearly payment in June each year…