Unlicensed accountants can now request advice on pension commutations for their clients, along with the required minutes, through Plenty Plus.
“This has been a highly requested area for advice for us because from 1 July your clients are not allowed to have more than $1.6 million in pension phase,” Plenty Plus co-founder Josh Golombick said during a video demonstration.
“Also, you are not allowed to provide this type advice to your clients without a licence, and if you do have an Australian financial services licence, you must give them a statement of advice (SOA) with the information.
“We ask the questions that are required to give the advice and as with other areas of advice, you can get your client to fill the information in, you can do it with them or do it without them there in order to produce the advice for a meeting.
“We’ll also collect the existing pension details – at the moment, this is entered manually, but soon we’ll be able to import it from third-party providers such as Class.”
The advice is produced instantaneously online and information around commuting balances can be viewed in the created SOA, Golombick noted.
“These recommendations are provided in the most cost-effective and tax-effective way possible, and also include other client factors that were collected,” he said.
“The advice would also include transition-to-retirement pensions, but if the client doesn’t have one, it won’t be included in the SOA.”
The cost for pension commutations advice is $99, including GST, the same cost as each piece of advice generated on the platform.
Plenty Plus is a transactional service using a pay-per-use model and does not charge upfront or ongoing fees.
