Key Documents
The Turnbull Government has released for consultation draft legislation and associated draft explanatory material to deliver on its vision to ensure a modern, vibrant superannuation system as announced by the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services on 24 July 2017.
The legislation will amend the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993, the Corporations Act 2001, and the Financial Sector (Collection of Data) Act 2001 to modernise the superannuation system. The amendments will improve accountability and member outcomes by:
- replacing the current 'scale test' with an 'outcomes test' that requires trustees to undertake an annual determination considering a number of features to ensure the outcomes being delivered are in the financial interests of their members;
- providing the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) with enhanced capacity to refuse or cancel a MySuper authorisation, where it believes that the registrable superannuation entity (RSE) licensee may not comply with its obligations;
- providing APRA with improved directions powers to enable it to intervene at an early stage to address prudential concerns;
- aligning the superannuation director penalty regime with the penalty regime that applies to directors of managed investment schemes;
- requiring people to seek approval from APRA prior to a change in ownership or control of an RSE licensee occurring;
- requiring RSE licensees to hold annual members' meetings to enable members to ask questions about all areas of their RSEs performance and operation; and
- enabling APRA to gather more information on the operational and managerial expenses of RSE's.
The Turnbull Government on 26 July 2017 has released for consultation draft legislation and associated draft explanatory material to close a loophole used by unscrupulous employers to reduce their employee’s superannuation guarantee when the employee chooses to make salary sacrifice contributions to superannuation.
All interested parties are invited to make a submission by 11 August 2017.