Questions & Answers - Wind Up

ESUPERFUND charges to wind up an SMSF in addition to the standard Annual Fee. This Wind Up Fee covers the additional administrative tasks required to close down your SMSF, including:

• Estimating your member balance for roll-out as of a specific date if applicable.
• Estimating the final-year's income tax, especially if the Tax Return has not yet been finalised if applicable.
• Processing the roll-out electronically via Superstream if applicable.
• Providing compliance and administrative advice throughout the wind-up and roll-out process.

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

It should be noted that the shares cannot be written off unless the shares are disposed of 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. 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.

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.

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.

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 In addition, if you have already rolled over / withdrawn your Super Benefits, you will need to reactivate your SMSF via contributions (subject to normal contribution rules) / rollovers.

As advised by the ATO, in order to wind up your SMSF, the written consent of all Trustees of the Fund is required.

Accordingly, a signed Trustee Minute is necessary to confirm that all parties have agreed to the decision to wind up the SMSF and the method of distributing the Super Benefits. Without this written confirmation from all Trustees, we are unable to proceed with the wind-up process.

If you are unable to obtain the necessary consent or if any parties are unwilling to cooperate, we recommend seeking professional advice from the ATO or a qualified legal professional regarding your available options.

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. ESUPERFUND only processes SMSF wind-up if Members' Super Benefits are transferred in cash.

No.

• If all Members choose to withdraw their Super Benefits (subject to meeting a condition of release), ESUPERFUND will provide the relevant BPAY details to facilitate the payment. The final Tax Liability can then be paid using personal funds after the final Tax Return is lodged with the ATO.
• If at least one Member needs to rollover Super Benefits to another Super Fund, ESUPERFUND will calculate the estimated Tax Liability for your SMSF's final Tax Return and instruct you to pay this amount in advance to the ATO. In this case, only the remaining Super Benefits can be rolled over to the new fund.

The processing time is usually 3 business days upon receiving ALL the required information from the Trustees.

As the Trustee, you 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.

No. From 1 October 2021, you will need to use SuperStream to rollover any money from your SMSF to another Superfund. The SuperStream standards require funds to be transferred via EFT. This means that Trustees will no longer be able to send a cheque to the Receiving Fund or transfer funds via BPAY.

According to the APRA Fund Unique Superannuation Identifier (USI) provided to our office, we obtain the bank account information of your Receiving Fund from the ATO electronically via the ATO's approved SuperStream Channel.

No. If the amount exceeds the daily transfer limit of the SMSF bank, you may need to increase the daily transfer limit or contact the SMSF bank directly for alternative options such as the EFT Withdrawal option. For CommBank clients, you will need to visit a CommBank branch office in person and present your valid ID to enable the transfer.

Here are some common reasons why we are unable to identify the withdrawal transaction and notify your Receiving Fund:

• You transferred funds from a manual bank account (incl. CBA Accelerator) and the transaction has not been added to the Client Portal - Interim Checklist - Bank page.
• The transaction can be found in the Interim Checklist - Bank page but the bank narration does not display the full / correct Payment Reference Number (PRN).
• Multiple transfers were made instead of a single withdrawal.
• The amount withdrawn from the SMSF bank account was different from the roll-out amount advised by ESUPERFUND.

Please contact ESUPERFUND via the Client Portal Inbox to resolve the issue.

Failure to comply with SuperStream standards constitutes a breach of the payment standards, which may result in penalties. In such cases, the auditor may qualify the SMSF's audit report and lodge an Audit Contravention Report (ACR) with the ATO.

To rectify this issue, please consider the following options:

• If you have met a condition of release, we can treat the transaction as a member withdrawal.
• ESUPERFUND can prepare a Rollover Benefits Statement for you. However, we caution that if a paper-based Rollover Benefits Statement is used to transmit information to the Receiving Fund, your SMSF will still be deemed non-compliant with SuperStream standards as the Transferring Fund.
• You may contact the Receiving Fund and request that the funds be refunded to your SMSF bank account. Once the refund is received, please notify our office. We will then provide guidance on how to reprocess the rollover in accordance with SuperStream requirements.

To avoid these complications, always submit your wind-up application to ESUPERFUND and wait for EFT instructions from our office before transferring any funds from your SMSF to another Superfund.

Please note that your Fund is not considered wound up until the final Tax Return is lodged and any outstanding Tax Liability / Refund (if applicable) is fully settled.

Importantly, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) only accepts the electronic lodgement of Tax Returns after the end of the Financial Year — that is, after 30 June.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) only accepts the electronic lodgement of Tax Returns after the end of the Financial Year — that is, 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. The time frame required to finalise the final Tax Return is around 3-4 months from the day you submit the Annual Checklist.

You can pay the final Tax Liability using your personal funds.

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

Any income or ATO Refund received after 30 June will not affect the wind-up process of your SMSF.

If you have met a condition of release and are eligible to withdraw your super, you may transfer the additional income from the SMSF bank account to your personal bank account as soon as possible.

If you have not met a condition of release, please wait for further instructions from ESUPERFUND via the Client Portal Inbox. We will assist in arranging for the additional income to be rolled over to your new Superfund via SuperStream as we prepare the final Tax Return.

You cannot close your SMSF bank account until the final Tax Return is lodged and all expected final Tax Liability / Refund (if any) has 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 and the SMSF ABN has been cancelled by the ATO, it cannot be reactivated. This means that you will have to establish a new SMSF if you wish to manage your super in the future.