Winding up your SMSF

SMSF AdviserThe sole purpose of your Self-Managed Super Fund is to provide retirement benefits to its members or to their dependants if the member dies before retirement. Eventually the time will come when your fund has serviced its purpose and it is required to be wound up.

An example of reasons why you might need to wind your fund up includes:

+ Declining health of trustees
+ Cost prohibitive to continue the fund
+ All the benefits may have been paid out of the fund
+ The death of the final member
+ The members/trustees have moved overseas
+ Running an SMSF is not in your best interests

Winding up a SMSF can be a complicated and drawn out process unless the right approach is taken from the outset. A rush to wind up a fund may expose your fund to unnecessary taxes and expense (particularly if you get it wrong and find you haven’t wound the fund up after all!).

Before you can resolve the fund has been wound up, a nil balance sheet is required, which means no assets and no liabilities. To do this all of the fund’s assets must be realised. If this position is not achieved prior to 30 June, your fund must attend to the usual year end reporting requirements for another financial year. This is the case even if only small member balances remain.

To wind up your SMSF, you need to:

+ Notify the ATO within 28 Days
+ Deal with all the assets of the fund so that the fund has no assets left
+ Arrange a final audit of the fund
+ Lodging your Self-Managed Superannuation Fund annual return and finalising any outstanding tax liabilities.
+ Deregistering you sole purpose Trustee Company (if applicable)

Whatever the reason for winding you fund up, smsf+options is here to assist you though the entire process.

For further information, contact us here.