The 50 per cent reduction of the minimum drawdown requirements for account-based pensions and similar products for 2019–20 and 2020–21 was part of the government’s changes to super in response to COVID-19.
Speaking at a recent webinar, Heffron chief executive Meg Heffron cited three particular groups of clients that advisers should be proactively contacting in relation to this change.
Trustees with market-linked pensions
Ms Heffron said the reason you might target people with very large market-linked pensions is that they have to pay tax half of the excess of their pension payments over $100,000, but if they only have to take half as much now, that effectively might have a significant reduction in the amount they pay tax on.
“Let’s say the pension payments were $400,000 a year, a very large market-linked pension. At the moment, they’re saying, well, the normal minimum — $400,000 less $100,000 — is $300,000. I’ve got to add half of that, $150,000, to my assessable income and pay tax on it,” she explained.
“Now instead of being $400,000 minimum, it’s only $200,000 minimum, their excess is only $100,000. We don’t do anything to that $100,000 we’re knocking off. It stays the same.
“So, they’re adding much less to their assessable income and they will be delighted if you tell them they can draw less, particularly if you tell them now before they’ve actually drawn it. If you don’t tell them until June after they already have, they might not be so happy.”
Trustees worried about not meeting minimum pension payments
Another client group worth contacting, according to Ms Heffron, is people who are worried about not having enough cash to make their minimum pension payments and are looking at having to sell assets to make their minimum.
She said that’s exactly why the government introduced the drawdown measure in the first place.
“It’s not really because putting less money in people’s hands at a time like this makes sense. It’s because they obviously were anticipating that a lot of people would’ve seen their retirement savings drop like a stone and might not have had cash on hand to meet pension payments,” Ms Heffron said.
“They’d be seriously worried about selling at the bottom of the market to provide cash to make pension payments.
“They are exactly the people for whom this was designed and they’re the people to reach out to now and say, ‘Don’t sell your assets unless you want to because it’s a good investment decision. But you don’t need to to meet your pension payments. You only need to pay out a lot less now’.”
Trustees wanting to treat drawdown like a partial commutation
As an administrator, Ms Heffron said it offers special minutes that allow trustees to say in advance that if a pensioner takes more than they need to, it can be treated as a lump sum from either their accumulation account or from their pension as a partial commutation.
She said the group of clients for whom treating the excess like a partial commutation will also find the government’s drawdown measure valuable.
“If they don’t have minutes in place that make that happen automatically, they would be the people to get in touch with now, and do that right now,” Ms Heffron said.
