In July last year we made improvements to our online application form to allow for the new rules around ECPI and segregation applying to self-managed superannuation funds from 1 July 2017. 

A key change made was to how you enter a pension commencement or pension commutation in the online form. If you haven’t been able to find where to enter this information on our new form you are not alone. For those of you coming via platforms the form is pre-filled for you, however for those coming direct we wanted to provide you with some additional assistance in finding where to enter this type of transaction. 

Previously, pension commencements and pension commutations each had their own section on the application form. The new form instead uses an “Internal transfers” section to illustrate any events which move assets between account types in the SMSF, and this is where you will enter the details of any pension commencements or commutations. 

The internal transfers section

This new section makes it easier to enter a wider range of transactions in response to superannuation changes for the 2018 financial year and can be found in the Operating Statement just after the Opening balances on the online form. This is further down the form than where you would previously have entered information about pension commencements and commutations. 
In addition to pension commencements and pension commutations, other transactions shown using the “Internal transfers” section include:

• allocations from a reserve account
• contribution splits
• conversion from a non-retirement phase TRIS to a retirement phase TRIS
• elected segregation of an asset 
• removal of elected segregation on an asset 
• commencement of a death benefit pension
• transfer of a reversionary pension from the deceased member to another member on death

Initially there are no boxes or inputs showing in this section, just a plus button under the heading on the left hand side.

Entering a pension commencement 

To show a pension commencement click the plus button to open a new row and enter the Date of the commencement and select Pension commencement from the Type drop down box.

Next you need to select the From account which is the member who is commencing the pension’s accumulation account. Then select the To account which will be an ABP or TRIS for the member commencing the pension. 

In the Amount field then enter the purchase price of the new pension, and in the Amount left over field enter how much has been left in the accumulation account after the pension has commenced. 

For example, below is how we would show that Member 1 commenced a new account based pension on 1 July 2017 with their entire accumulation balance of $250,000:

A pension commutation is completed in the same manner but the From account is the member’s pension account and To account is the member’s accumulation account. The Amount left over in this instance is the balance left behind in the pension after the commutation. If a full commutation is being shown this will be zero.

Finding out more

When filling out the application form there are tooltips for some inputs you can hover over and green question marks on the right hand side of each section you can click on for more information.  

Of course, if you would prefer to speak with one of our team you can always email us at act@accurium.com.au or call us on 1800 203 123.