HLB Mann Judd director of superannuation Andrew Yee said he “can’t see why” SMSFs have been subject to such intense criticism.
“It seems to be a punching bag for when something goes wrong in the economy,” Mr Yee said.
“Things like blaming them for pushing up the property market, and blaming them for investments also just being in income and bank shares and not in other asset classes,” he said.
“I was looking at stats and the latest stat is 3.5 per cent for residential property and commercial is around 11.5-12 per cent. In terms of residential there is no SMSF bubble created by investing in property,” he added.
Mr Yee also mentioned SMSFs are being “zeroed” in on for being a tax minimisation vehicle for the “mega-rich”.
“I think that is quite unfair, even though that is naturally a vehicle that they use. I think it has been unfairly targeted, because SMSFs are not only for the rich and you will find it is for a whole range of people,” he said.
“What I have seen is it’s mainly middle-class. You can see lower to upper middle-class, so it is not all for the mega rich,” he added.
Mr Yee said there are many areas in which high net worth individuals can minimise tax, including trusts – not only SMSFs.
“The point I want to make is SMSFs are not this big beast that needs to be whipped down and criticised,” he said.
Oh no – people are (legally) reducing their tax in order to save for their retirement and reduce the pressure on the Age Pension system!
What makes it worse is that they are doing this by investing in Australian companies to take advantage of a dividend imputation system that was set up to – wait for it – encourage investment in Australian companies!
The government must close down these “loopholes” immediately or the economy will fall apart before we know it.
I’m confused… don’t APRA regulated funds have the exact same tax concessions as SMSF.
Well spoken, Andrew Yee!
Whilst it has its faults, the SMSF system has had its desired effect: to allow hundreds of thousands of prudent people to accumulate wealth to provide for their retirement.
The Government, and its agencies, need to recognise and applaude this rather than making SMSFs a whipping-boy.