Introducing a new benefit of your SuperGuide membership, where we arrange discounts to complementary services provided by carefully selected partners.
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SuperGuide members receive a 20% discount
SuperGuide members Q&A: December 2023
Thursday 14 December 2023 at 11:00 am AEDT
In this webinar super expert Garth McNally will answer recent questions from SuperGuide members.
Q. If a couple were to get divorced and they split the husband’s (57) super, so that his wife got half, is the husband able to use his portion straight away, or is he able to use it to put down a deposit on a house? Thank you
A. Super splitting on divorce does not generally affect when you can access your money. Most super is ‘preserved’ and cannot be accessed until you retire after your preservation age (age 60 for a person who is 57 right now) or meet another condition of release.
If you made voluntary contributions prior to 1999, there may be an ‘unpreserved’ amount in the account that can be accessed early.
After a split on divorce, your super retains the same ‘preservation status’ as before.
Voluntary personal contributions to super can be used towards the purchase of a home if you are a first home buyer who has not previously owned property. A maximum of $15,000 in contributions from any one financial year and $50,000 of contributions in total can be used towards a release under this scheme. The ATO is able to grant a hardship exemption allowing non-first homebuyers to use the scheme if they have lost all their property due to financial hardship, including hardship caused by divorce.
You can learn more about conditions of release, super splitting on divorce, and the first home super saver scheme in the following articles.
Q. What inflation number would push the Transfer Balance Cap from its current indexed value of presumably something above 1.9M, to the next threshold trigger of $2M for 1/7/2024?
A: Based on our calculations, the transfer balance cap will be indexed to $2 million from 1 July if the CPI index number is 137.5 or more in December 2023.
The index number for September was 135.3, so inflation of approximately 1.62% or more in the September-December 2023 quarter could prompt an increase to the general transfer balance cap.
Learn more about the transfer balance cap.
If you’re looking to move assets into super, understanding the bring forward rule could help you do it sooner.
Important: All information on SuperGuide is general in nature only and does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider whether any information on SuperGuide is appropriate to you before acting on it. If SuperGuide refers to a financial product you should obtain the relevant product disclosure statement (PDS) or seek personal financial advice before making any investment decisions.
