BT to focus on Budget-driven super strategies
BT Financial Group will target the over-55 demographic in a concerted effort to capitalise on the proposed superannuation concessions stemming from last year’s Budget.
In a technical briefing on the detailed superannuation changes proposed to come into effect from July 1, 2007, Sue Merriman, BT head of technical, said it would be “pushing the message out there to as many people as possible before July 1”.
The ability to make the one-off $1 million undeducted contribution forms the central tenet of the push within the group’s private bank and high-net-worth client space.
After outlining a number of case studies describing strategies to obtain maximum benefit from the $1 million post-tax contribution allowed before June 30, 2007, Merriman concluded that while potentially of great value, they were of such sophistication that most individual investors should not attempt them without the aid of a financial adviser.
“These numbers are not things people can work out for themselves; they need an adviser,” she said.
Also discussed were ‘transition to retirement’ pensions, which Merriman said had not proven particularly popular since their inception in July 2005.
“Maybe advisers are still coming to terms with them,” she said, while expressing her belief that such strategies could deliver real benefits for many people, using a case study to demonstrate how someone aged 60 with $400,000 in superannuation could save over $5,000 in tax concessions alone.
Despite the potential benefits, Merriman conceded that such strategies did have a slightly limited appeal, being suited particularly to those individuals aged 55 years and over and classified as high-net-worth.
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