COVID-19 resurgence still top concern for financial advisers
COVID-19 continued to be top of mind for financial advisers and their clients in the September quarter, according to BT Financial Group.
The firm found that among top five concerns that advisers wanted to discuss, two were related to covid and referred to the re-contributions of early release of super amounts and the extension of COVID-19 relief for self-managed super funds (SMSFs).
“Some advisers are pleasantly surprised to learn that their clients can re-contribute the amounts they had withdrawn under the COVID-19 early release of super program, and that those re-contributions will not be counted towards their non-concessional contributions gap,“ BT technical services’ technical consultant, Tim Howard, said.
“What’s more, clients have until 30 June, 2030, to make the re-contributions – and so have a long period in which to get the their retirement savings back to where they were.”
As far as extension of COVID-19 relief for SMSFs was concerned, the Federal Government extended a range of reliefs measures for SMSFs to the end of the 2022 financial year and SMSF trustees who were unable to return to Australia, due to travel restrictions, would not see their fund’s residency status impacted.
Following this, other concerns of advisers and their clients were related to owning property by SMSFs.
“Advisers are asking for certainty around what the alternate solution may be, although they may already know the answer. They are double checking with us, as clients who are about to retire are regularly asking advisers whether they can move into the property owned by their SMSF,” Howard added.
The other top concerns were the indexation of the transfer balance cap and removal of the excess concessional contributions charge.
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