Book Reviews » A How to Book of Self Managed Super Funds

Author: NEGLINE, Tony	Publisher: actbiz.com.au	ISBN:
Location: Brisbane	Price: $55.00	Reviewed by: Jenni Eason

 

Tong Negline has worked in the financial services industry for over 20 years and writes a weekly column in The Australian.  He has worked with small superannuation funds for most of this time. The book has been written with SMSF trustees in mind, but also contains some more general information others may also find useful.

This is by far the most comprehensive of any of the SMSF books I have read and runs to just over 400 pages. It covers almost every aspect of running a SMSF in quite a lot of detail and provides examples where appropriate.
    
There are twenty-one chapters and three appendices in the book. It covers many topics found in most SMSF books eg background on super, compulsory super, setting up a SMSF, trustees responsibilities, investing super fund assets, putting money into and getting money out of super, etc. The advantage of this book is that much more information is usually provided so the coverage is more comprehensive than that found in other books.   

The book also includes a lot of information less often found in SMSF books with whole chapters devoted to the super fund tax rules, administrative issues eg record keeping, designing a pension, steps to paying a pension, bankruptcy, Centrelink, GST, aged care and a detailed chapter on the small business tax concessions.

The book is written in an easy to read style (I admit I read a hard copy) and finding information is not too hard even in the pdf version.  [One of these new ebook readers would probably make it even easier to read.]  My main issue with ebooks is that it is hard to jump from one area to another when everything you want to read is not in the same chapter.

There are three areas where the book could be improved:

1. The order of the chapters could be improved eg why is Setting up a SMSF Chapter 11?
2. More information could be provided on the steps involved in common activities such as pension commutations, lump sum payments, amalgamation, etc which the author has already written about in the Wealth Section of The Australian.  He has advised that this will be included in a future edition.
3. A detailed rear index would also be useful.  In the meantime, the Table of Contents is pretty comprehensive as it gives all headings for each chapter.

This book is highly recommended for any SMSF trustee and whilst I understand the author’s reluctance to produce a hard copy due to constantly changing rules (it’s already in its second edition) I think that it could be a worthwhile exercise.

Jenni Eason is a member of the AIA and Coordinator of the Brisbane SMSF Discussion Group.

 

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