Age pension members to consider strategies
Some financial advisers and their clients may have until 1 January 2017 to consider strategies to preserve entitlements until their account-based pensions cease to be grandfathered, according to a financial services lawyer.
Townsends Business and Corporate Lawyers special counsel, Michael Hallinan, said under the Budget Centrelink assets test change to pre-1 January 2015 account-based pensions, members will lose their grandfathered status if their entitlement to the age pension is reduced to nil as a result of the changed assets test.
These account-based pensions are currently excluded from the Centrelink ‘deeming' test and therefore remain subject to the ‘deductible amount' income test.
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