ASFA Action 4 March 2016 

Issue 595, 4 March 2016 

In this issue: 

• ASIC relief: intra-fund transfers, accrued default amounts and investment strategies 

• ATO indexed caps and thresholds 

 

ASIC relief: intra-fund transfers, accrued default amounts and investment strategies 

As part of its ongoing process of reviewing class orders that are due to sunset (expire), ASIC has issued three new legislative instruments to continue—and in some cases expand—relief from requirements in the Corporations Act 2001 regarding application forms and cooling off for certain transfers of members’ interests, and provision of information about investment strategies. 

The instruments were all registered on 1 March 2016, and commenced on 2 March 2016. 

ASIC Corporations (Amendment and Repeal) Instrument 2016/66 repeals: 

• [CO 04/1574] Application form and cooling-off relief for certain transfers of members between financial products and interests within a superannuation fund 

• [CO 06/636] Superannuation: delivery of product disclosure for investment strategies. 

ASIC Corporations (Superannuation – Accrued Default Amount and Intra-Fund Transfers) Instrument 2016/64 : 

• continues, for intra-fund transfers, the relief previously provided by [CO 04/15774] from the application form and cooling off requirements 

• extends that relief to cover all transfers of an accrued default amount to a MySuper product, whether that product is within the fund or in a different fund. 

ASIC Corporations (Superannuation – Investment Strategies) Instrument 2016/65 continues the relief previously provided by [CO 06/636], which addressed some difficulties that flowed from the operation of section 1012IA of the Corporations Act. Section 1012IA applies to certain custodial arrangements where, if the member instructs the superannuation fund trustee to follow a particular strategy, the trustee will acquire ‘accessible financial products’ on behalf of the member. [CO 06/636] provided trustees with options for giving disclosure material about accessible financial products, and modified the significant event notice requirements for such acquisitions. 

 

ATO indexed caps and thresholds 

The ATO has published an updated list of superannuation caps and thresholds for 2016/2017. 

Caps that have not been increased include: 

• the concessional and non-concessional contributions caps 

• the low-rate cap (for lump sum benefits) and ETP cap (for employment termination payments). 

Caps and thresholds that have increased for 2016/2017 include: 

• the income thresholds for the government co-contributions 

• the maximum contributions base (for superannuation guarantee purposes) 

• the capital gains tax cap amount 

• the untaxed plan cap amount 

• the tax free amounts for genuine redundancy and approved early release scheme payments.