The revelation comes as the industry begins investigating the government’s $3 million super tax and the ramifications it may have on the average self-managed fund.
And although support for taxing funds of this magnitude seems universal, many in the industry are sceptical that many more SMSFs will be caught in the tax net.
David Busoli, practice principal and SMSF specialist mentor with the SMSF Alliance, said it’s hard to argue that such balances should be supported with retirement tax concessions but questions whether the government’s proposal responds appropriately.
“Around 11,000 Australians hold super balances of more than $5 million, but the cap is being set at $3 million to catch a whopping additional 69,000 members,” he said. “Where one member of a couple holds $3 million and the other nothing, the balance isn’t split, so, in practical terms, they have $1.5 million each but will still be at the cap.
“Not only that, the cap isn’t indexed, so it won’t be long before its real value is much less than $3 million.
“It doesn’t cut in for two years. By then, at current inflation rates, it has already reduced to $2.65 million. This tax has been portrayed as an equity measure, but a $3 million unindexed cap is anything but.”
The Daily Telegraph reported the FOI documents showed that the top 100 super funds in Australia collectively hold more than $12 billion, up from $9.7 billion in 2020, and that 11 funds have more than $200 million in assets in them, while 46 contain more than $100 million.
Assets owned by the top 100 funds soared from $9.7 billion in 2020 to $12 billion in 2021, the newspaper stated.
Recent analysis by the Grattan Institute shows that there were around 43,000 Australians with between $2 million and $3 million in super at the end of the 2019–20 financial year.
The analysis based on data from the ATO also showed that around 295,000 people had between $1 million and $2 million.
The Grattan Institute estimated that by 2052, 10 per cent of Australia who earn above $142,000 a year on average throughout their career would start to retire with nominal balances of around $3 million.
The latest quarterly data from the ATO shows that the average taxable income of Australians who have self-managed funds is between $100,000 and $150,000, which accounts for around 22 per cent of SMSFs.
The next largest percentage of SMSF is for those on a taxable income between $60,000 and $80,000 at around 12 per cent.
Clearly providing concessions to large funds is not sustainable yet you are very selective with your extracts from the Grattan Institute to support the views of the person quoted in your article who believes the $3m cap is not equitable. In fact, the Grattan Institute propose the cap be reduced to $2m and state that “much of the boost to super balances from tax breaks is never spent. By 2060, one-third of all withdrawals from super will be via bequests – up from one-fifth today.”