Arguably the most familiar cry in recent times has been the outrageous levels of investment held in residential property and how this situation will eventually end in the creation of a property bubble.
While these current accusations can be dismissed on the basis of fairly blatant self-interest, it wasn’t long ago support for the denigration of SMSFs came from higher places as well.
In particular, only a few years ago one of the highest offices of the government, namely Treasury, was still referring to self-managed funds as the “tax minimisation vehicle of choice”.
Naturally this label was not well received by the sector at the time as it just about totally dismissed any other valid reasons for establishing and running an SMSF.
However, it is heartening to know Treasury has now done a complete about face in its attitude to SMSFs and has finally backed the sector in fairly glowing terms.
This was no more evident than at the latest industry conference where Treasury revenue group executive director Rob Heferen stated SMSFs members were about to number 1 million in Australia and that milestone was an “unambiguously good thing”.
Heferen reinforced this sentiment in passing on the very positive message he had received lately from the powers that be in the nation’s capital.
“I’d like to make it very clear the Treasurer [Joe Hockey] has spoken to a group of us, and I’m sure he’s said it publicly and certainly the Assistant Treasurer [Arthur Sinodinos] has said it publicly, that the idea [and] broad philosophy of people being in control of their own retirement incomes for their future is unambiguously a good thing,” he said.
“I’m sure that will give a lot of confidence to the people in the room about the future of the sector.”
The comments indicate how far SMSFs have come and give all participants involved reason to believe the sector will be allowed to further flourish without the spectre of any unnecessary headwinds from our legislators.
This can only be deemed a great result.
