SMSF advice in Perth

An SMSF is a superannuation fund of up to six members where every member is a trustee, or a director of the corporate trustee, and the members carry the legal responsibility for compliance. We help Perth professionals decide honestly whether that trade is worth making, and then run the fund as a deliberate part of the wider architecture rather than a box the auditor ticks each year.

Is an SMSF right for you?

An SMSF suits people who want control and whose situation has enough complexity to justify it — business premises, a coordinated strategy across several entities, or estate needs a large fund cannot handle. It suits far fewer people than the number who open one. The honest first step is deciding whether the control is worth the legal responsibility.

In November 2025 ASIC published the results of a review of 100 SMSF establishment advice files. Thirty-eight demonstrated compliance with the best interests duty. Sixty-two did not, and 27 raised significant concerns about client detriment. That is not an argument against SMSFs. It is an argument for making the decision properly, before you commit rather than after — because almost none of it is cheaply reversible.

Here is the test we actually apply.

We will tell you when the answer is no. It frequently is, and saying so costs us the engagement more often than it wins one.

What does an SMSF let you do that a large fund does not?

The practical differences are asset choice, borrowing and estate control. An SMSF can hold direct property including business premises, borrow through a limited recourse borrowing arrangement, hold specific direct assets, and give binding control over death benefits. An APRA-regulated fund offers none of those, but carries the compliance burden for you.

Notice that the trade-off is symmetrical. Everything the SMSF gives you in control, it takes back in responsibility. Anyone who describes an SMSF as simply better is selling something.

How much does an SMSF cost to run each year?

SMSF running costs are largely fixed rather than percentage-based: annual accounting and lodgement, an independent audit, the ATO supervisory levy, and any actuarial, valuation, investment or advice fees. Because they are fixed, the cost as a share of your balance falls as the fund grows. That is why balance size, not enthusiasm, usually decides whether the structure stacks up.

The components you should expect to see itemised, every year:

• Accounting and annual return preparation — the largest recurring item for most funds.
• The independent audit. Every SMSF must be audited annually by an approved SMSF auditor. It is not optional and it is not the accountant.
• The ATO supervisory levy, payable with the annual return.
• An actuarial certificate, where the fund pays a pension and uses the proportionate method.
• Property valuations, where the fund holds real property — and, from this year, with more consequence than before.
• Investment costs inside whatever the fund holds.
• Advice fees, which should be quoted as a dollar amount, not a percentage.

The comparison that matters is not "is this expensive?". It is "is this more expensive than what I am paying now, for what I get?". A percentage-based fee on a large balance in a retail fund is frequently the higher number — and equally frequently is not. We model both and show you the difference in dollars before you decide, which is precisely what ASIC's guidance for advisers expects an adviser to do.

What is the minimum balance for an SMSF?

There is no legislated minimum balance for an SMSF. The widely quoted $200,000 figure comes from ASIC guidance that has since been withdrawn, and was never a legal threshold. The current regulatory expectation is that an adviser compares the total cost of the SMSF against the client's actual alternative, rather than applying a blanket number.

This question gets asked constantly and answered badly, usually by repeating a number from a superseded document. The honest answer is that the threshold is situational: a $300,000 fund holding one low-cost index portfolio and a $300,000 fund holding a commercial property with a loan are not the same proposition, and no single figure covers both.

What we will not do is quote you a minimum we cannot substantiate.

How many members can an SMSF have, and who can be a trustee?

An SMSF can have up to six members. Every member must be a trustee, or a director of the corporate trustee, and every trustee must be a member — with limited exceptions. A disqualified person, including anyone convicted of an offence involving dishonesty or who is an undischarged bankrupt, cannot act as a trustee.

The live decision is individual trustees versus a corporate trustee. A corporate trustee costs more to establish and carries an annual ASIC fee. It also survives a death, simplifies title on property, keeps the asset-holding entity separate from the individuals, and reduces the paperwork every time membership changes. For any fund holding property, or any fund that intends to exist for decades, the corporate trustee is usually worth the extra cost — and retrofitting one after the fact means retitling the assets.

Can my SMSF own the building my business operates from?

Often yes. Business real property can generally be held inside an SMSF and leased to your own business, provided the lease is on genuine arm's-length commercial terms and the arrangement satisfies the sole purpose test and the in-house asset rules. It is a powerful structuring move that is unforgiving if it is built incorrectly.

This is one of the few places where superannuation law deliberately makes room for a business owner, including medical specialists in private practice. It is also one of the easiest places to create a breach that takes years and real money to unwind.

The conditions people underestimate:

• The lease must be commercial and it must be documented and actually followed. A related-party tenant who pays late, pays under market, or pays nothing during a difficult quarter is a compliance problem, not a family arrangement.
• The property must satisfy the business real property test — wholly and exclusively used in a business. Mixed-use premises need care.
• The sole purpose test governs everything. The fund exists to provide retirement benefits. A transaction structured mainly to solve a business problem, with a retirement rationale attached afterwards, is the wrong way round.
• Liquidity. A fund holding one building and little else has to pay expenses, tax and eventually pensions from somewhere.

If you own your premises personally, or your business does, moving them is a CGT, duty and lending question as much as a super question. That is a conversation to have before you contact a broker.

Can an SMSF borrow to buy property?

An SMSF can borrow to acquire a single asset through a limited recourse borrowing arrangement, where the lender's recourse is limited to that asset and the asset is held in a separate holding trust. The structure must be correct at the outset. A limited recourse borrowing arrangement is very difficult to retrofit or repair after settlement.

The mechanics are less interesting than the sequencing. The arrangement has to be established before the fund is contractually committed, with the holding trust in existence and the loan terms documented on arm's-length terms. Signing a contract first and arranging the structure afterwards is the single most common way this goes wrong, and it usually surfaces at audit.

We also ask a question lenders and agents do not: what happens to this arrangement if a member becomes ill, the business slows, or the property sits vacant for six months? A geared, illiquid asset inside a fund that must also pay pensions is a plan with a single point of failure. Sometimes that is an acceptable risk. It should be a decision, not a discovery.

What is Division 296 and how does it change SMSF strategy?

Division 296 applies from 1 July 2026 and reduces super tax concessions on large balances. It applies to the members of superannuation funds. An extra 15% of superannuation earnings attributable to a total super balance above $3 million is payable by the individual. An additional 10% tax is payable by the member on the portion attributable to a total super balance over $10 million. These thresholds are for the financial year 2026–27.

Division 296 is not the only change in motion: the capital gains rules change from 1 July 2027, which matters for property and other growth assets held in a fund, and further trust-related measures are before parliament. We track announced measures as they pass and update these pages — figures here carry their effective dates.

If your total super balance is near either line, this changes four things at once, and it arrived this financial year:

1. Whether the next dollar belongs in super at all. Above the first threshold, the concession narrows, and the comparison against a company or trust changes. That is an asset-location decision, not a contribution decision.
2. Which assets belong inside the fund. Where growth accrues now matters more than it did.
3. Liquidity. A tax liability attributable to movements in the value of an illiquid asset still has to be paid in cash. A fund holding one property and a modest cash balance has an obvious problem the year the valuation moves sharply.
4. Valuations. Property and unlisted asset valuations carry more weight when a threshold turns on them. Casual valuations are no longer good enough.

For the funds that are close, it is the most consequential change to superannuation strategy in a decade.

What happens to my SMSF if I move overseas?

An SMSF must remain an Australian superannuation fund to keep concessional tax treatment. That requires central management and control to be ordinarily in Australia, and the active member test to be satisfied. Extended time overseas can breach both. A fund that fails these tests can be taxed at a punitive rate on its entire balance.

This matters more in Perth than most places. Resources careers move people to Singapore, Jakarta, Houston and Dubai, sometimes at short notice and sometimes for longer than intended. A short posting is usually manageable. A three-year secondment where you are the sole decision-maker is a genuine risk to the fund's status — and the consequence of getting it wrong is not a penalty, it is the tax treatment of the whole fund.

If a move is even a possibility, raise it before you go, not after. The fixes — appointing an appropriate co-trustee, restructuring contributions, or in some cases winding the fund up before departure — all require lead time.

How does an SMSF pay a death benefit?

Superannuation does not automatically pass under your will. An SMSF death benefit is paid according to the fund's trust deed and any valid binding death benefit nomination, or otherwise at the trustee's discretion. Because the surviving members control the trustee, who holds that role after a death matters as much as the nomination itself.

This is the part of SMSF practice that produces the most litigation and the least planning. Three things are worth checking on any existing fund, today:

• Is the nomination valid, current, and consistent with the deed? Non-lapsing is not the same as binding, and an invalid nomination is simply ignored.
• Who controls the trustee after a death? In a blended family, the person who inherits control frequently is not the person the deceased assumed would exercise it.
• Are pensions reversionary, and should they be? It changes both the tax outcome and who has a say.

A fund with a well-drafted deed, a corporate trustee and a valid nomination is a straightforward estate. A fund with individual trustees, a 2009 deed and a nomination signed once and forgotten is a dispute waiting for a trigger.

Can I close an SMSF or move back to a large fund?

Yes. An SMSF can be wound up: dispose of or roll over the assets, obtain a final audit, lodge a final annual return, pay any remaining tax, and close the fund's bank account and ABN. The order matters, because the fund must remain compliant until it is formally wound up, and the final audit still has to be paid for.

Almost nobody writes about this, which tells you something about who writes about SMSFs. Circumstances change. People get tired of it. A strategy that made sense with a business no longer makes sense after the business is sold. Winding up is not a failure and it is not shameful — it is occasionally the best advice available.

What it is not, is instant or free. Assets have to be dealt with, which can trigger CGT. A property may need to be sold or transferred. The final year still requires an audit and a return. Plan a wind-up over a financial year, not a fortnight.

Where Perth SMSFs quietly leak value

Six patterns account for most of the value lost in funds that are technically compliant and strategically idle. Control is not the same as competence, and an SMSF grants you the first while quietly assuming the second.

• Contribution strategy that ignores caps, timing and carry-forward room. The concessional contributions cap is $32,500 for the 2026–27 financial year, up from $30,000. Any unused cap from the previous five years can be carried forward where your total super balance was under $500,000 on the prior 30 June, and unused amounts expire after five years. Most people never check whether they have room to contribute more, and the room is use-it-or-lose-it.
• An investment strategy document written for the auditor rather than for you. It is a legal requirement, reviewed annually, and it is also meant to be a plan. Most investment strategy documents are a page of boilerplate ranges wide enough to permit anything.
• Insurance never actually considered. Trustees are required to consider insurance for members as part of the investment strategy. "Considered and declined" is a valid answer. "Never discussed" is not, and it is the finding auditors raise most often.
• No coordination between the fund, the family trust and the company. Three structures, three advisers, one household, no sequence.
• A pension strategy that ignores the transfer balance cap. The general transfer balance cap indexed to $2.1 million on 1 July 2026, and individuals receive a proportional increase only if they have never previously reached their personal cap — so the number that applies to you may not be the number in the headline.
• Death benefit nominations left until it is too late to fix.

What we actually do, and what we do not

We act as the strategist for the fund, not its administrator. We do not replace your accountant or your auditor — an SMSF auditor must be independent, so the same firm cannot advise, administer and audit. Our fee is agreed with you before any work starts, and any life insurance commission is disclosed in our Financial Services Guide.

In practice that means we set the strategy — contributions, asset location, pension settings, structure and estate treatment — and then make sure your accountant, auditor and, where relevant, your solicitor are working from the same plan. Most of the value in an SMSF engagement is not in any single decision. It is in the sequencing, and in someone noticing the thing nobody else was looking at.

How do I get SMSF advice in Perth?

Start with a Wealth Gap Conversation — a no-obligation discussion about how you want to live, what the fund is meant to do, and whether an SMSF genuinely fits. Justin Porrins is a CFP® and SMSF Specialist Advisor™, ASIC Adviser No. 250071, based in Perth and advising across Western Australia. He responds personally within one business day.