Using a corporate trustee structure for an SMSF is no longer as cost prohibitive as it once was given the associated fee the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) charges for the company involved has been significantly reduced.
Accurium SMSF manager Matthew Richardson acknowledged one of the drawbacks of setting up a special purpose company to act as the corporate trustee for a new SMSF was the requirement to pay regulatory fees, but argued these could not be considered prohibitive.
“There is a cost to setting up a new special purpose company, but it is very small. It is actually only $65 [per year] at the moment as compared to $321 [that was previously charged],” Richardson told attendees of a technical webinar he hosted yesterday.
“So we’ve seen a big decrease [in that cost] and you can pay for 10 years at a time, which [entitles you to] get a discount as well so it’s only $452 to have that company registered for 10 years.”
In previous years ASIC had been charging $2381 for prepaid company registrations covering an operational period of 10 years.
“So that’s really not a lot to pay if you’re willing to [establish an SMSF with the best trustee structure available],” Richardson said.
He also took the opportunity to stress the importance of providing ASIC with the correct address pertaining to a special purpose company or any similar entity.
“[In relation to the annual review for the company], we’ve heard from a few people where they [have encountered issues] because they set up the trustee structure [using a particular] address, but then the SMSF was deregistered [because that address was no longer applicable],” he explained.
Having an incorrect company address means the ASIC annual review notice may not be received by the entity’s directors and this in turn could mean the annual registration fee is not paid, he warned.
