Research undertaken by Rice Warner and the SMSF Association reveals only SMSFs trustees in the top quartile or top 22.1 per cent for balances will be affected by the $1.6 million pension transfer cap.
SMSF Association chief executive Andrea Slattery said out of the sample size of 14,351 members, only 3,170 members had a closing balance greater than $1.6 million.
“It shows you in the main, the majority of SMSFs are not going to be affected because they haven’t got enough to get into that $1.6 million,” she said.
“This [also] shows that for people building for their self-sufficient retirement, there’s still a long way to go, even in the SMSF sector where the balances are significantly higher compared with other sectors.”
The data show that overall the majority of SMSF members have a closing account balance less than $1,000,000.
“In 2015, there were 10,615 members with balances under $1,000,000 or 75 per cent of the sample population,” Ms Slattery said.
“There are 47 high value outliers with more than $10,000,000 in assets under management which has a distortive effect on averages.”


