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.

20 November, 2019

Putting members' interests first

It is common for superannuation funds to provide insurance to members of their fund. In fact, for many people, the only life and disability insurance they may have is the insurance in their superannuation account. In March 2019, the federal parliament passed legislation1 to prohibit super funds from continuing to provide...

06 November, 2019

Age Pension - not all assets are created equal!

This week I am continuing the discussion, focusing on one aspect of the means test which is applied to calculate a person’s entitlement – their assets. Your age pension entitlement can be affected by your assets, whether you own your home, which is an exempt asset homeowner), are renting non-homeowner),...

30 October, 2019

Age Pension – what, when and how much?

Does paying taxes while you’re working give you the right to expect you will receive an age pension when you decide that you no longer want to work – in other words, retire? The short answer is no. What is the age pension? The age pension is a safety net...

23 October, 2019

Is your employer paying the correct amount of super?

There has been quite a bit of media focus in recent months about some employers failing to pay the correct, or in fact any, compulsory contributions to superannuation for their employees. So serious is the problem, new legislation has been tabled in parliament offering employers a one-off amnesty if they come forward...

16 October, 2019

What is the cost of complacency?

Australians are notorious for being disengaged with what will often become their largest investment apart from their family home. What am I referring to? Their superannuation! In fact, many Australians and particularly younger ones) are so totally disengaged they are not aware of what super fund they belong to, how many accounts...

25 September, 2019

A few simple questions for a would-be investor?

Realise your Dream is not a blog which provides investment advice for the retiree or future retiree. No doubt our readers do have a firm interest in their superannuation and how it operates. On occasions they are also tempted to think that as investors they could do better. So, I...