Financial Planning for Senior Public Servants

We’re invested in your long-term success. What we do is personal, and we take it personally.

Your financial decisions connect, so we consider the parts of your financial life that are relevant to the advice you need:

• Property & Investing
• Career & Income
• Tax Strategy
• Insurance & Protecting Your Family
• Super & SMSF
• Wealth & Investments
• Life Events & Changes
• Business & Wealth
• Legacy & Future Wealth
• Retirement Planning

This is how we help you make decisions today with your longer-term goals in view.

Everybody’s situation is different, so we listen first, understand what matters to you and explain your options clearly before we make a recommendation.

It means the ATO has assessed Division 293 tax on your super contributions. A notice can show both deferred amounts and amounts due by a date, so start with what yours says and take it to an accountant. On a defined benefit, the ATO generally defers payment until a benefit is paid from your fund, and keeps a debt account, with a statement whenever the balance changes. Deferred debts not paid by 30 June each year attract end of year interest.

Paying a deferred amount voluntarily by 30 June avoids that interest, and whether that suits you is a question for an accountant. We can then build any debt into your plan, including the amount to pay when you take a benefit.

Your accountant and financial adviser bring different expertise to the same decisions. Your accountant can advise on tax reporting, structures and consequences; we help you plan how cashflow, debt, super, investments and protection work towards your goals. We can coordinate before important decisions.

What an accountant does

• Prepares and lodges tax returns, BAS and financial statements
• Advises on tax structures such as companies, trusts and partnerships
• Manages bookkeeping, payroll and ATO compliance
• Provides tax advice on the consequences of a transaction

What a financial adviser does

• Sets a long term strategy across retirement, investing and cash flow
• Builds wealth from early in a working life, starting with cash flow, a first home and super
• Recommends specific super funds, investments and personal insurance
• Operates under an Australian Financial Services Licence, which is required to give personal advice on financial products
• Handles retirement planning, Centrelink and aged care strategy, and estate planning considerations

Professional roles and authorisations matter. We provide financial advice within our authorisations and work with your accountant for specialist tax advice and lodgements.

Where they work together

• Tax position. Your accountant confirms your marginal rate, deductions and carried forward losses, which shapes decisions on super contributions, investment structures and the timing of asset sales.
• Business and entity structures. Your accountant advises on the structure itself and your financial adviser works within it for investments, insurance and succession planning.
• Cash flow. Your accountant’s figures can help us understand what’s available for debt repayment, protection and longer-term goals.
• Before key decisions. We can coordinate with your accountant on contributions, asset sales and other material choices in time to consider relevant tax consequences.

Start with what your contract or employment instrument says about notice, renewal and what’s paid if the role ends. Your agency or employer answers those questions, and an accountant can confirm how any payment is taxed. Points to plan:

• A buffer, sized to the time a move between roles could take
• Any cover through your employer or fund, and what happens to it if you leave
• Your super, including what your fund says applies if you go
• Your goals, whether the contract is renewed or not

We can build the date into your plan with you, so it’s there whichever way the decision goes.

It can move functions, resources and people from one agency to another. Commonwealth guidance says Australian Public Service employees who move are transferred at their existing substantive classification level and duties, and at their existing employment status, ongoing or non-ongoing. State arrangements vary, and your employer’s HR team answers what applies to you.

For the money side, we’d look with you at:

• Your pay, and whether any salary packaging arrangement continues, which the new agency can confirm
• Any cover through your employer or fund
• Savings and goals, if your role or location changes

That depends on your fund’s rules and your plans, so it’s worth asking your fund before you change anything. Moneysmart says some funds offer benefits that you may lose if you leave, and you generally can’t rejoin.

We’d go through with you:

• What your fund says happens to your benefit if you leave or transfer
• Whether you can receive a pension, lump sum or both
• How your benefit may be taxed, with an accountant
• How any change would sit with your income and other super

From there, we can advise on what suits your situation, and your fund answers how its own benefit is worked out.

Your fund can explain how your account works, what options you have and what its rules allow. A financial adviser looks at how that fits with the other parts of your financial life that are relevant to the advice you want, such as other super, debts, cover, tax with an accountant or a contract date.

With personal advice, we start with what you’d like your money to do, and we can work from the answers your fund gives you before we recommend anything.

If your employer offers salary packaging, it can affect more than your take-home pay. Any reportable fringe benefits amount is part of the income the ATO uses for Division 293, and salary sacrifice contributions are concessional contributions. Your packaging provider or an accountant can tell you whether an item creates a reportable amount.

We can weigh packaging and salary sacrifice together with you, beside your cashflow and super, with an accountant confirming the tax.

Yes. In the Commonwealth, Senior Executive Service employees submit, at least annually, a written declaration of their own and their immediate family’s financial and other material personal interests. Other roles may have their own requirements, so it’s worth checking your employer’s rules.

We can plan with you from what you tell us about those requirements, so investments, property and super are considered with any declaration in mind. Your agency or employer decides what’s declared and how any conflict is managed, and our advice works within that.

Yes. Our financial advice and strategies can help you get ready while you’re still in your role. We can set a buffer with you, see how long your money would last between roles, look at any debts and check what your fund says leaving would mean for any defined benefit. Your contract, employment instrument or agency can tell you what would apply if your role ended, and an accountant can confirm the tax on any payment.

Income protection is generally for illness or injury rather than losing a job, so we can help you understand what it would and wouldn’t do for you, and what may change with any cover if you leave. If your role does end, our redundancy advice can help with what comes next.

Yes. We can look with you at when you’d like to finish, what your fund offers, such as an income stream, a lump sum or both, and how any accumulation super sits beside it. If you have a deferred Division 293 debt, the amount to pay is worked out when you take a benefit, so it belongs in the plan from the start.

We’d set all of that against the life you’d like next, whatever date you choose. There’s more on our retirement advice page.

We’re a national service, so you can meet with us by phone or video from anywhere in Australia. We also have offices in three cities:

• Sydney: offices in Sydney CBD, Parramatta, Seven Hills, Ingleburn and Narellan, servicing areas including the City of Sydney, Eastern Suburbs, Inner West, North Shore, Northern Beaches, Sutherland Shire, Blacktown, Liverpool, Campbelltown and all surrounding suburbs.
• Melbourne: our St Kilda Road office, servicing areas including the City of Melbourne, Port Phillip, Boroondara, Monash, Casey, Wyndham and all surrounding suburbs.
• Brisbane: our Eagle Street office, servicing areas including Brisbane City, Moreton Bay, Ipswich, Logan, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and all surrounding suburbs.

Yes. You don’t need anything sorted before we talk, whether you’ve just been promoted or you’re nearing a leaving date.

There’s no cost for the initial conversation. Any advice after that is a paid service, with its scope and fee agreed with you in writing first.

It helps to bring your latest super or scheme statements, any Division 293 notices, your contract if you hold one and any insurance policies you have. We can meet in person or online.