Australia: Legislated superannuation changes since the winter newsletter
Spring Wealth Management update

Recently legislated

Since our Winter 2013 Newsletter, proposed superannuation changes that have since been legislated include (but not limited to):

Concessional contribution caps

Concessional contributions include contributions for which the individual or an employer is allowed a tax deduction. This includes the 9% compulsory SG payments, salary sacrifice contributions and personal contributions for which an individual is entitled to claim a tax deduction (usually where less than 10% of an individual's assessable income plus reportable fringe benefits for the income year came from being an employee).

The concessional contribution caps are as follows:

**subject to indexation

Not yet legislated

Budget proposals that are yet to be legislated include:

Taxable pension income above $100,000 p.a.

One budget proposal was to tax superannuation pension income at a rate of 15% once earnings had exceeded $100,000 per annum, per member. No legislation has been passed and this change had a proposed start date of 1 July 2014.

Deeming account based pension for Centrelink's income test

Currently, account based pensions are assessed under Centrelink's Income Test as the amount of income received per annum over the deductible amount. The deductible amount is the value of the pension at commencement, divided by the life expectancy at the point of commencement. Essentially the income that is assessed is seen as being the amount in excess of the return of capital over the life of the pension. The budget proposal was to assess account based pensions in the same manner as other financial assets such as shares, cash and term deposits and have the value of the asset subject to deeming rates. No legislation has been passed and this change was proposed to commence from 1 July 2015.

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