Set up and manage a Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF)
Control over your retirement savings starts with a fund built to hold them.You want your super invested the way you would invest it, not the way a default option would. An SMSF gives you that. It also makes you the trustee: the person who signs the declaration, answers to the ATO and carries the fund’s compliance. Most of what goes wrong in an SMSF was decided on the day it was set up. The deed, the trustee structure, the registrations. We get those decisions right the first time, and stay with the fund as the rules and your circumstances move.
A fund built to hold it
The deed is drafted around what you actually want the fund to own, rather than around a template's guess.
The trustee job, spelled out
You know what you are answerable for before you sign the trustee declaration, not afterwards.
Complying from day one
The deed and the registrations qualify the fund from its first day, so the concessional rate is genuinely available to it.
What is a Self-Managed Super Fund and why does it matter?
A Self-Managed Super Fund is a private superannuation trust with up to six members, where the members are also the trustees. That is the whole difference. In a retail or industry fund somebody else decides how your money is invested and answers for it. In an SMSF you do both.
The fund can hold assets a public fund will not offer, including the premises your business trades from. It can also pool the balances of a couple or a family under a single strategy. In exchange, the trustees carry the fund’s compliance themselves, and the concessional tax treatment depends on them meeting it.
What does it cost to set up and run an SMSF?
There is a one-off cost for the documentation and the registrations. Then there is an annual cost for audit, accounting and lodgement that the fund carries every year, whatever it earns. That annual figure decides whether an SMSF is worth it at your balance, so we give you the full picture first.
How many people can be in the fund?
Up to six, and every member has to be a trustee or a director of the corporate trustee. Couples, families and business partners commonly pool their balances in one fund, which spreads the running costs across a larger pool.
What can the fund invest in?
More than a public fund will offer: Australian and international shares, term deposits, managed funds, commercial and residential property, and your business premises. Every investment has to fit the fund’s own investment strategy and the superannuation rules, including the sole purpose test.
Do I need a corporate trustee?
You can have individual trustees instead, but a corporate trustee is usually the better answer. It keeps the fund’s assets clearly separate from your own and avoids retitling every asset when a member joins or leaves. It is also effectively required if the fund ever wants to borrow.
Is an SMSF right for you?
Tell us what you want the fund to hold and who would be in it. We will tell you whether an SMSF is the right structure before you commit to running one.
Most SMSF problems were built in on day one
You want control over your retirement savings, and an SMSF is the only structure that gives it to you. What is less clear is what you are taking on. The deed, the trustee structure and the ATO registrations all have to be right, and they are the hardest things to change later. You do not want to find out three years in that the fund was never set up the way it needed to be.
- We will tell you whether an SMSF is the right structure for your situation.
- We will prepare a trust deed carrying the powers your fund will need.
- We will establish a corporate trustee where that is the better structure.
- We will complete your ATO, ABN and TFN registrations.
- We will prepare your member, contribution and rollover documentation.
- We will review an existing fund and tell you what needs to change.
You want to decide where your super goes
You have built a super balance that is now worth paying attention to. You are tired of it sitting in a default option chosen by someone who has never met you. There may be a property you want the fund to hold, or a partner or adult children whose balances would do more pooled than apart. You have heard the word compliance often enough to be wary of it. Nobody has told you plainly what you would be taking on, and you want to know what the job is before you accept it.
What's included in your SMSF setup and management service
- SMSF trust deed prepared for your fund.
- Corporate trustee established where one is required.
- ATO, ABN and TFN registrations.
- Member applications, consents and rollover documentation.
- Advice on contributions, pension phase and compliance obligations.
- Ongoing support as the rules and your circumstances change.
What does a badly set up fund cost?
The ATO’s contravention data lands in the same place year after year: most of what goes wrong in an SMSF was decided at establishment. A deed that does not give the trustees a power they later need. A trustee structure chosen because it was cheaper on the day. A registration that was never completed properly.
A fund that did not meet the SMSF definition from the start may never have been complying at all. That means the concessional rate it has been taxed at was never available to it. And the longer the fund runs on the same foundation, the more there is to unwind. The error sits in the document everything else refers back to.
How we build a fund that holds up
We start with what you want the fund to do, because that is what decides the deed. We prepare a deed carrying the full range of powers the current law contemplates. We set up a corporate trustee where it is the better answer rather than by default. The ATO, ABN and TFN registrations are completed so the fund qualifies from its first day.
You finish with a fund you can actually use. It can pay the pensions you will want, accept the nominations you will make, and take on a borrowing arrangement if that is ever the plan. For a fund already running, we review what was set up and tell you plainly what works and what has to change.
How we set your fund up
Three steps from decision to a fund that can take your first contribution.Decide the structure
We work out whether an SMSF suits your situation at all. If it does, we settle the trustee structure and the fund design that fit what you want it to hold.
Build and register
We prepare the deed, establish the corporate trustee where one is needed, and complete the ATO, ABN and TFN registrations.
Open for business
We prepare the member applications, consents and rollover paperwork so the fund can take contributions and start investing.
A fund built for what you actually want it to hold
The appeal of an SMSF is simple and worth saying plainly: you would rather make the decisions yourself. What puts people off is not the investing. It is the sense that there is now a body of rules you are personally answerable to. Nobody has laid out what they are.
We are ISO 9001 accredited. What gets checked on a fund establishment, who checks it and what you are told about it are set down rather than left to the day. Superannuation is also tax law before it is anything else, and our Chartered Tax Advisor has held that Tax Institute credential for twenty-five years.
Our great lawyer guarantee
Six principles we hold to, whatever you bring us and however long it takes.
Take the time
We listen carefully to understand what you want to achieve, then step you through the advice and the documents.
Share our knowledge
We pass on as much as we can, so you can make your own informed decisions.
Stick to our knitting
We only do what we are good at, so you never pay for our learning.
Work as one team
Someone is always available to answer your question or point you the right way.
Fair pricing
A fixed or capped quote for advice and documents, so you do not carry the price risk.
It is your show
We are in it for a front row seat to witness your success, not for our egos.
Find out what running a fund involves
Tell us what you want your super to hold and who would be in the fund. We will tell you whether an SMSF earns its keep for you, and what setting one up actually involves.
More on this area of law
Read more about Self-Managed Super Funds and what running one involves.
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