Questions & Answers - Wind Up

ESUPERFUND charges (incl. GST) to wind up an SMSF (i.e. to close down your SMSF). The Wind Up Fee is payable in addition to the ESUPERFUND Annual Compliance Fee for attending to your SMSF's Final Year Compliance Requirements.

For more information on ESUPERFUND’s Fee Schedule, please click here.

No. ESUPERFUND will lodge a final Tax Return after the Financial Year end to notify the ATO that your SMSF is being wound up during the previous income year.

You cannot close your SMSF’s bank account until the final Tax Return is lodged and all expected final tax liability/refund (if any) have been settled with the ATO.

You cannot deregister the Corporate Trustee until the final Tax Return is lodged with the ATO. For the detailed information regarding the process to deregister a Corporate Trustee Company, please contact the ASIC directly on 1300 300 630.

No. Once your SMSF is wound up, it cannot be re-activated. This means that you will have to establish a new SMSF if you wish to manage your super in the future.

The average processing time for the Rollover Benefits Statement is at least one month upon the receipt of all the requested information and provided that your SMSF has no outstanding tax returns for any prior income years. Failure to complete the required steps and provide the requested information may increase the preparation time of the Rollover Benefits Statement.

As the Trustee, you will need to arrange the transfer of your Super Benefits from the SMSF bank account to the new Superfund by yourself. Please note that ESUPERFUND does not have transaction access to your SMSF bank account and therefore we are unable to make the transfer on your behalf.

You will need to contact the Receiving Fund to confirm whether they can accept the EFT method.

No. When preparing the Rollover Benefits Statement for you, ESUPERFUND will calculate the estimated tax liability for your SMSF’s final Tax Return and instruct you to pay the estimated tax liability (if any) to the ATO in advance.

Yes. You have to make enough pension withdrawals from your SMSF bank account to enable you to meet the minimum pension payment requirement before rolling out your Super Benefits.

If you meet a condition of release, you can choose to withdraw your Super Benefits directly. For more information on accessing your Super Benefits and the tax implications depending on your age and the withdrawal type, please click here.

We caution that if you do not meet a condition of release, your Super Benefits can only be rolled over to another Superfund.

No. Clients of ESUPERFUND are not allowed to in-specie transfer out the assets held by the SMSF during the wind-up process. The complexity involved is outside the scope of our offering.

The final Tax Return can only be electronically lodged with the ATO after the Financial Year has been concluded (i.e. after 30 June).

In order for ESUPERFUND to prepare the final Tax Return and Audit for your SMSF, you will be required to complete and submit an Annual Checklist. You will be notified via the Client Portal Inbox once the Annual Checklist is released in your Client Portal Inbox. The time frame required to finalise the final Tax Return is around 3-4 months from the day you submitted the Annual Checklist.

The refund will generally be issued by the ATO within 2-4 weeks after the lodgement of the final Tax Return.

Any additional income or ATO refunds received after 30/06/2021 will not affect your SMSF's wind-up process.

The remaining funds should be rolled out or paid out as soon as possible. An additional Rollover Benefits Statement will be prepared for you when finalising your SMSF’s final Tax Return if you do not meet a condition of release to withdraw the remaining funds.

You can pay the final tax liability using your personal funds.

No. Capital Losses are trapped within the trust structure of the SMSF and cannot be transferred or distributed out of the SMSF. Any unused Capital Losses of the SMSF will therefore be lost upon winding up your SMSF.

It should be noted that the shares cannot be written off unless the shares are disposed or a loss declaration is issued. The SMSF is unable to wind up until the share value becomes nil and there is no expectation that any dividends would be paid.

Accordingly you should contact the administrator or the company holding your shares to ascertain the current value of your shares.

Alternatively, you may contact the associated share registry to transfer the shares to your personal account at market value and deposit the proceeds into your SMSF bank account.

Yes. Please contact our office via the Client Portal Inbox if you decide to withdraw your wind up application. In this case, your SMSF will be required to lodge a normal Annual Return for the current Financial Year as well as for future Financial Years. You will be required to pay any outstanding Annual Compliance Fee before we can re-instate your SMSF. In addition, if you have already rolled over / withdrawn your Super Benefits, you will need to re-activate your SMSF via contributions (subject to normal contribution rules) / rollovers.