Age Pension Concierge @ yourpension.com.au

Maybe you are one of the two-thirds of age pensioners who are going to have their entitlements reduced, or withdrawn, on Jan 1 2017? Some households will be up to $15,000 pa worse off. How can you supplement your income to minimise the impact? The 2017 amendments to the age pension are primarily targeted towards ‘asset based’ age pensioners. The lowering of the asset thresholds may result in ‘earning’ additional income not in fact impacting on revised age pension entitlements. The following is a brief summary of the issues surrounding the options being discussed by clients and ‘the web’. Of course the following is generic and is therefore primarily designed to highlight the issues. Please contact us for specific guidance. Odd Jobs ‘John’ decides to do some odd jobs for neighbours and friends. John sets himself up as self-employed and works from a shed ‘out the back’. He expects to earn around $20,000 pa. A few matters that he should be careful with: Being self-empl...

Our age pension calculator has been updated for the 1 July 2016 updates at Yourpension.com.au Income Test Income test l imits for the full Age Pension are indexed on 1 July each year and for part Age Pensions are indexed in March, July and September of each year. Income Test – 1 July 2016 For full pension/allowance (per fortnight) For part pension(pf)  Single up to $164 less than $1911.80 Couple (combined) up to $292 less than $2926.80 Illness separated (couple combined) up to $288 less than $3787.60 Work Bonus Scheme – The WBS is an incentive for age pensioners to “participate in the workforce” by providing an income threshold of $6,500 pa. This threshold remains unchanged since its inception. Asset Test Asset Test FULL age pension– 1 July 2016 Homeowners Non-homeowners Single $209,000...

With the recent lowering of the cash rate by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) there  has been renewed concerns over the Centrelink deeming rates applied for the age pension.  We have discussed this topic before and suggested that while it is a relatively simple mechanism to ‘average’ the various investments returns, we are concerned with the growing discrepancy between the applied rate and the cash rate. The current (May 3 2016) RBA cash rate is 1.75% while the Centrelink deeming rate continues be as high as 3.25%. While even the most common term deposit rates are less than 2.5%. Four years ago there was virtually no difference between the cash rate and the highest deeming rate. The result? Pensioners are receiving less! Some of the arguments put forward by those supporting the 3.25% rate include: Q. “Commercial superannuation returns are more than 7%, what’s wrong with 3.25%?” A. Super ‘funds’ generally recommend a more conservative fund balance balance for thos...

We continue to have enquiries regarding the changes to the Age Pension scheduled for 1 Jan 2017. Approximately 50,000 Age Pensioners are projected to be better off under the government’s changes and receive the full pension and about 120,000 part pensioners are predicted to add around $30 per fortnight to their wallet. However, recent reports have indicated that far more will be disadvantaged with more than 300,000 Age Pensioners having at least part of their pension cut, and just under 100,000 of these people losing all Age Pension entitlements. The government has said that people who do lose their pensions in 2017 will automatically be entitled to receive a Commonwealth senior’s health card or a low income health card. These cards will provide access to Medicare bulk billing and less expensive pharmaceuticals. Of course, this is not a concession as a result of the proposed changes this simply remains the current situation. The Low Income/Concession cards are income based...