While pundits continue to suggest the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will move to impose limitations on the Government’s new pre-retirement pensions regime, the ATO itself has used its monthly superannuation newsletter to outline how the new regime will actually work.
The newsletter points out that the new measures came into effect on July 1 and allow people to access their superannuation benefits while remaining in the workforce once they have reached preservation age.
It said the measure provided a condition of release where clients can access their superannuation benefits in the form of a non-commutable income stream such as allocated pensions, lifetime pensions, life expectancy pensions or market linked income streams.
The ATO said there are no work tests prescribed in the legislation and that individuals could “continue working in any capacity and be able to draw a pension or annuity.”
The ATO’s newsletter has been offered at the same time as some industry spokesmen have suggested that members of superannuation funds now have a capacity to draw down their superannuation in the form of a pre-retirement pension while continuing to make superannuation contributions.
The ATO’s newsletter did not deal with this particular scenario.
