Articles

Realise Your Dream

The Realise Your Dream blogs are written by Peter Kelly and Mark Teale.

Peter provides technical advice to financial advisers and accountants on superannuation, retirement planning and estate planning. He also has extensive knowledge in all aspects of self-managed superannuation funds and is a regular presenter at conferences, seminars and workshops. He is Manager; Technical Advice with Centrepoint Alliance Limited.

Mark has a great deal of experience, having worked for the Department of Social Security and Centrelink as a Financial Information Service Officer and Regional Manager for close to 25 years and for the last 15 years, he has worked for Centrepoint Alliance as Research, Paraplanning and Product Manager. He now works alongside PK as a Manager; Technical Advice part of the Centrepoint Technical team.

Naturally, his specialties lay in the areas of Aged Care, Centrelink and Veteran's Affairs and pushing people to realise that you are never too old to set yourself a challenge yourself.

01 March, 2023

A fast-moving couple of weeks

Since my last blog, Should our Super be Limited?, there has been quite a bit of press coverage, not only in the financial sector, but also in mainstream media on potential changes to superannuation. This media attention coincides with the Government having just released its consultation paper that proposes enshrining the...

15 February, 2023

Should our super be limited?

There has been an interesting debate being played out in various sectors of the superannuation industry in recent months. While it will have very little impact on most Australians, it is worth touching on the interests of a wider debate. As readers well know, superannuation is a very tax effective...

01 February, 2023

Temptation

When things are tough financially, desperate times often call for desperate measures. Many Australians are currently feeling the effect of rising living costs due to increases in food, electricity, and interest rates. These are having a significant impact on balancing the household budget. The same income is being stretched even...

20 January, 2023

What does 2023 hold in store?

At the time of writing, I have been back at work following the Christmas/New Year break for two whole days. For me at least, it seems more challenging each year to pick up the rhythm and get back into the flow for another new year. But that’s life! So, what...

24 November, 2022

What is...the work bonus?

The Australian age pension is not a universal pension scheme. By that, I mean it is not freely available to everybody. To qualify for the government sponsored age pension eligible applicants are subject to meeting an assets test and an income test. These tests determine how much, if any, age...

09 November, 2022

A downsizer update

Back on 1 July 2018, a new opportunity arose that allowed older Australians to make contributions to superannuation without meeting the normal age limits and other conditions required for making contributions. The introduction of “downsizer contributions”, which allows older Australians to contribute up to $300,000 of the sales proceeds of...