Custom Marketing Strategy

02The work

Everything we built for you, on this page.

Every piece is finished, written in your voice, and yours to keep regardless of whether we work together. Summary first, then the full text of each piece further down.

Video Ad Scripts

Platform-ready variations across angles and audiences

Funnel Pages

Landing page and confirmation page for your funnel

Long-Form Explainer Video Script

Full video sales letter, written in your brand voice

Confirmation Page Video Scripts

Breakout content for education and trust

Pre-Appointment Email Sequence

Confirmation-to-appointment nurture sequence

Broadcast Emails

Email sequence

Funnel Architecture

End-to-end acquisition flow

Read the full text · tap any row to expand

Video Ad Scripts 6 variations

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Ad 1: "If your super balance has a three in front of it" →

Hook, 0-5s

Screen: Meg to camera, mid-shot, plain Heffron-teal wall behind. No lower-third yet.

If your super balance has a three in front of it, the Government wants a word.

Body, 5-22s

Screen: cut to a single line of legislation on screen, the words 'earnings' highlighted, then back to Meg.

The new Division 296 tax catches anyone over three million in super. The draft has been through two revisions and there are still a few stings in the tail (especially around what happens when a member dies, which the lawyers will love).

Screen: Meg back to camera.

We have spent eighteen months reading every version of this thing so our clients don't have to.

Cta, 22-30s

Screen: Meg to camera. End card fades up on right: HEFFRON logo, "complimentary consultation", phone icon.

Book a complimentary call with our team. We will tell you, in plain English, whether Division 296 hits your fund and what the cleanest fix looks like.

Ad 2: "Your accountant probably isn't an SMSF specialist" →

Hook, 0-6s

Screen: Meg to camera, slight smile. Lower third: "Meg Heffron, Managing Director, Heffron".

Here is something most trustees don't realise. Your accountant is probably very good at tax, but they are almost certainly not an SMSF specialist.

Body, 6-48s

Screen: Meg continues to camera.

There are about six hundred and ten thousand SMSFs in Australia and roughly twenty thousand accounting firms. Do the maths. Most firms only see a handful of funds, so the technical depth simply isn't there for the harder questions (and they're always the questions that matter).

Screen: brief cut to a real Heffron client testimonial frame, name on screen, line reading: "It's those PERSONAL phone calls with our Fund Managers that make all the difference." Then back to Meg.

We have been doing only SMSFs since 1998. Our team includes actuaries, we consult to the ATO and Treasury on draft legislation, and I write the SMSF column for Firstlinks and the AFR. None of that is to brag (a bit). It is to say that if your fund holds property, has a pension running, or is anywhere near the three million Division 296 threshold, the questions get hard quickly.

Screen: pricing card animates on, reading: "Three tiers from $3,170 to $4,320 incl. GST per fund per year. Audit and a named relationship manager included." Then back to Meg.

Our fees are fixed and published on the website. The audit is included and you get a named person who knows your fund by name.

Cta, 48-60s

Screen: end card with phone number and Heffron logo, Meg to camera as voiceover.

Book a complimentary consultation. Bring last year's annual return and your two biggest questions. We will give you straight answers.

Ad 3: "The SMSF firm the regulators call" →

Hook, 0-8s

Screen: Meg to camera, slightly warmer setup, softer key light with books on a shelf behind.

When we started doing SMSF work back in 1998, the funds were still called 'excluded funds' and there were fewer than two hundred thousand of them in the country (can you imagine?).

Body, 8-78s

Screen: black-and-white historical b-roll of old Australian tax legislation, then back to Meg.

There are now over six hundred thousand SMSFs and roughly a trillion dollars sitting inside them. That growth has brought a lot of new firms into the space. Most of them are software-led or offshore-processed, which is fine for simple funds (the cash-and-listed-shares variety). It is not fine for what we do.

Screen: Meg continues.

We are independent. We are not owned by a software company or a bank. Our team includes qualified actuaries, our technical people are quoted in the AFR and The Australian, and the regulators ring us when they're drafting legislation, not the other way around.

Screen: testimonials-style cut, a single Dale S. quote sits on screen for a beat: "It is those PERSONAL phone calls with our Fund Managers that make all the difference, in a reassuring way."

Screen: Meg to camera, holding a printed annual report.

Practically, that means a named relationship manager who knows your fund, an annual fee that is published on our website (no surprise invoices), and the audit included in the price. And when something like Division 296 lands, you get a team that has already read every draft of the legislation and can tell you, in plain English, whether it touches your fund.

Cta, 78-90s

Screen: end card with phone, web, complimentary consultation badge. Meg voiceover.

If your SMSF balance is over a million dollars and you would like a second set of expert eyes on it, book a complimentary consultation with our team. The first call is free and we will give you a straight answer either way.

Ad 4: "Is your SMSF caught by Division 296?" →

Headline
Is your SMSF caught by Division 296?

Body
$3m+ super balance? The new tax has a few stings in the tail and we have read every draft.

CTA
Book a complimentary consultation

Ad 5: "A specialist second opinion on your SMSF (no charge)" →

Headline
A specialist second opinion on your SMSF (no charge)

Body
Most accountants only see a handful of SMSFs a year. We have done only SMSFs since 1998. Our team includes actuaries, we consult to Treasury on draft legislation, and our fees are fixed and published on the website. Book a complimentary consultation and bring your two biggest questions.

CTA
Book a 20-minute call with our team

Ad 6: "The SMSF firm the regulators call" →

Headline
The SMSF firm the regulators call

Body
When we started Heffron in 1998, there were fewer than two hundred thousand SMSFs in Australia and they were still called 'excluded funds'. There are now over six hundred thousand of them and a lot has changed (Division 296 is just the latest example).

What hasn't changed is what we do. We work only on SMSFs. Our team includes qualified actuaries, our technical people consult to the ATO and Treasury on draft legislation, and Meg writes the SMSF column for the AFR and Firstlinks.

Practically, that means a named relationship manager who knows your fund, a fixed annual fee that is published on our website, and the audit included in the price. If your fund holds a pension, owns property, or is anywhere near the $3m Division 296 threshold, book a complimentary consultation with our team. We will give you a straight answer on whether your structure still works.

CTA
Book a complimentary consultation

Funnel Pages 2 custom pages

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View Landing Page↗

View Confirmation Page↗

Long-Form Explainer Video Script 1 complete script

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title: Heffron VSL, Division 296 and SMSF Administration (Trustees Direct)
length: ~10 minutes spoken
audience: Australian SMSF trustees, 55-75, with $1m+ super balances
hook: Division 296 (the new $3m super tax) and the quiet ATO scrutiny that comes with it

Hook
If you run your own SMSF and your balance is anywhere north of a million dollars, there's a piece of legislation that has spent the last six months quietly rewriting the rules for people exactly like you. It's called Division 296. And by the time Parliament finishes with it (which the current sitting calendar puts somewhere between now and the back end of this year), it will reshape how the ATO looks at your fund, how earnings are calculated, what happens when a member dies, and whether the children you'd quite like to leave something to actually receive it.

I'm Meg Heffron. I run Heffron, and we've been doing nothing but SMSFs since 1998. My team and I administer funds for trustees across every Australian state, we consult to Treasury and the ATO on this very legislation, and I write about Division 296 most months in the Australian Financial Review, The Australian, and Firstlinks. If you're a trustee with a meaningful balance and you've felt the ground shifting under your fund this past year, you're not imagining it. The ground is shifting. And in the next ten minutes I'd like to walk you through what we're actually seeing, what we're doing about it for our trustee clients, and how to decide whether your fund is in the right hands for what's coming.

Body

Screen: Heffron logo lockup, then cut to Meg piece-to-camera in office

Let me start with the version of Division 296 that's now in front of Parliament. The original draft, the one most people heard about first, was the proposal to tax unrealised capital gains on super balances above three million dollars, and that bit has now been dropped. Good news (a bit). Less encouraging is the fact that the bill actually moving through Parliament has a few stings in the tail that have had very little public airtime, and they matter most for the people most likely to be watching this video.

Here are the mechanics, briefly. From 1 July 2025, if your total super balance crosses three million dollars at year-end, the proportion above three million gets hit with an extra fifteen percent tax on what the legislation calls your 'earnings' for the year. Sounds tidy. The catch is the way 'earnings' is defined. It looks at the movement in your total super balance across the year, with some adjustments for contributions and withdrawals, which means in any year your fund has a strong investment return, the calculation can produce a number that bears very little resemblance to what most people would call profit. If markets are flat or down for the year you can carry a loss forward, which helps. When markets run hard, though, you'll be writing a cheque.

Screen: Side-by-side comparison graphic, old proposal versus the revised bill

The piece almost nobody is talking about is what happens when an SMSF member dies. The revised legislation tries to capture, in its own words, the last skerrick of tax from high-balance members in the year of their death. It does this through a calculation that runs all the way to the point benefits are paid out. So if a death benefit takes a while to administer (and many do, for very ordinary reasons), the Division 296 bill keeps growing in the background. The ATO has already signalled it will be watching the requirement to pay benefits 'as soon as practicable' much more closely than it ever has. That phrase used to be a soft expectation. From mid-2026 it has a revenue impact attached to it, and revenue impact is what changes ATO behaviour.

If you're sitting on a balance over three million, or a fund where two members combined are above six, or even just a fund that might tip over in the next few years with normal growth, this is the period where decisions get made. Strategic ones. The timing of your drawdowns. Whether to start a pension, or whether the spouse with the smaller balance should be receiving contributions instead, and whether your binding death benefit nomination needs to be redrafted to reflect what Division 296 now does to estate planning. None of these decisions are dramatic on their own. They become expensive when they're missed or done late.

Screen: Cut to Meg at desk, casual

Here's the part I want to be honest about. Most SMSFs in this country are administered by people who are doing their best on software that was designed for a simpler version of the rules. The legislation has outrun the tooling. We're seeing funds where the trustees have done absolutely nothing wrong and the administrator simply hasn't flagged a Division 296 exposure because the system isn't asking the question yet. There are also plenty of funds where the original accountant has retired or stepped back from SMSF work entirely, and the trustees have been quietly shuffled to a generalist team who handles their compliance the way an outer-suburbs panel beater would handle a Ferrari. Sounds like a design that will be loved by the lawyers (eventually).

So, a quick word on who we are and why we might be the right home for your fund.

Screen: Heffron team photo, then a still of the awards block from heffron.com.au

Heffron has been operating exclusively in SMSFs since 1998. Twenty-seven years, only ever this. We've been named SMSF Adviser 'Administrator of the Year' five years running, and we've taken out the Core Data and SelfManagedSuper SMSF Administrator Award five times as well. Our team educates the rest of the industry, which is to say other administrators, accountants and advisers buy our courses to learn how to handle the law I'm describing to you right now. We sit on the panels where the ATO and Treasury work through how new legislation will actually be applied. That's why when something like Division 296 lands, we're not reading about it for the first time the same week you are.

Here's what working with us actually looks like. You get a named relationship manager. A real person at our team in Maitland or Brisbane whose direct line you have, whose email you have, and who knows your fund the way your GP knows your blood pressure. They handle accounting, tax, compliance, audit coordination, and the annual minutes, and they keep an eye on the things that change year to year (contribution caps, pension minimums, indexation thresholds, and now Division 296). If you have a question, you ring them. You don't go through a portal queue and you don't get bounced to whoever's free that afternoon.

Our administration sits in three tiers depending on the complexity of the fund. The Streamlined service runs at $3,170 a year including GST and covers funds with cash, listed shares, and the more straightforward wrap accounts. From there it steps up to the Standard service at $3,745 a year, which covers about eighty percent of the funds we look after, including property and crypto and the institutional accounts that need a bit more handling. At the top end is the Advanced service at $4,320 a year, which covers funds with collectables, foreign assets, private trusts, or multiple investment properties. Audit is included in all three. The fee is fixed. You get one invoice a year, you know what it is in advance, and there are no surprises in May when everyone else is doing the inevitable mad rush around year-end.

If your accountant currently looks after your fund and you're wondering whether we'd be stepping on their toes, we work alongside accountants all the time. Often the accountant is delighted to hand the SMSF administration over to a specialist team and keep the advice relationship intact. We've moved hundreds of funds across from other providers and the transition is something we organise, not something you have to project-manage. Mid-year switches are routine for us.

Body, objections
A few things people tend to ask at this point.

The first is whether the fee is steep. Compared to a discount provider it's higher. Set it against what one bad Division 296 decision can cost a fund with a three or four million dollar balance and it looks roughly like the cost of a sensible insurance premium. The trustees who choose us are the ones who've worked out that the cheap option isn't cheap once the ATO starts paying attention, which it is about to.

A second question is whether you really need an administration firm at all if your accountant has been handling things informally. The honest answer is that you might not, if your accountant is one of the very small number who specialise in SMSFs full-time and keeps current on legislation like the bill in front of Parliament right now. If they don't, the risk you're carrying is quiet but real, and it tends to surface at the worst possible moment.

The third is the worry about switching. Trustees ring us anxious that moving providers will be a nightmare. It is not a nightmare. Our team has a checklist that runs the changeover. You sign two forms and we do the rest.

The fourth is the question of whether the firm is too big or too small. We sit deliberately in the middle. The technical team includes qualified actuaries and SMSF specialists who consult to the regulators, and at the same time you'll always know the name of the person looking after your fund. With offices in Maitland and Brisbane and clients in every state, almost all of our work runs over the phone, by email, and in scheduled video calls.

Body, who it's for

Screen: Cut back to Meg piece-to-camera

This is going to be a fit if you have a balance somewhere north of a million dollars, you take your fund seriously, you want a named person on the other end of the line, and you'd rather pay a sensible fixed fee for proper specialist work than the lowest possible figure for a service that treats your fund like a row in a spreadsheet. We work especially well with trustees who are in pension phase or about to enter it, trustees whose balance is heading toward the three million threshold, and trustees who have inherited an SMSF after a spouse has passed away and want a steady pair of hands while they take stock.

It's not going to be a fit if your fund is very small and very simple and the cost of professional administration would be disproportionate. eSuperfund or a software-only setup will probably serve you better, and we'll say so on the call rather than pretend otherwise.

CTA

Screen: Cut to Meg piece-to-camera, slight push-in

If any of what I've just walked through is sitting in the back of your mind already, the next step is a complimentary phone or video consultation with our team. You bring whatever information you have on your fund (or don't; we'll work from a clean slate if that's easier) and we'll talk through your specific situation, where Division 296 might land for you, and whether moving across to us makes sense. It's a conversation, not a sales call. If it isn't a fit we'll tell you so, and if there's something you can do yourself today that doesn't require us at all, we'll tell you that too.

Click the button beneath this video to book your complimentary consultation. You'll see a calendar with available times, you can choose phone or video, and you'll be speaking with someone on our team who knows SMSFs cold.

Division 296 is moving. Parliament returns to it this sitting, the ATO is already adjusting how it scrutinises high-balance funds, and trustees who get organised this year will have considerably more room to manoeuvre than trustees who wait. Click the button beneath this video, pick a time that suits, and we'll have a proper conversation about your fund.

Twenty-seven years of doing nothing but this. We'd be very glad to look at yours.

Confirmation Page Video Scripts 6 scripts

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Video 1: What actually happens on this call? →

Length: 90 seconds

(Meg to camera, soft Heffron-teal background, mid-shot. Heffron logo lower-third for first 3 seconds then fade.)

Right. You've booked a call with us. The very reasonable next question is probably: what is actually going to happen on it? Because if you're anything like the trustees I usually meet, you've probably sat on a few calls in your life that turned out to be a thinly disguised sales pitch with a countdown timer at the end. This isn't one of those. [pause]

Here is what the next 30 minutes look like. We start by asking you to tell us about your fund. How long you've had it, roughly what is in it, who is in it with you (often a spouse), whether you're in accumulation phase or already drawing a pension, and what you currently do for the accounting and the audit. We are listening for the bits of your situation that are genuinely tricky and the bits that are completely standard. Most funds are a mix of both. [pause]

Then we tell you, in plain English, what we think. If we believe we can make your life easier and your fund cleaner from an ATO point of view, we will say so and we will show you exactly what that would look like, what it would cost, and what would change for you. If we think you are already well looked after where you are, we will tell you that too. [pause]

There is no slide deck. There is no "limited time offer". The person on the call with you is from our team, not a separate sales department who then hands you over later. Whatever you decide at the end of the call, you walk away with a clearer picture of where your fund stands. [pause]

So please bring your questions. The harder ones are genuinely the most fun for us.

(Cutaway: B-roll of a Heffron team member on a Zoom call mid-conversation; cut back to Meg for the final line.)

Video 2: Is Heffron actually the right fit for my fund? →

Length: 120 seconds

(Meg to camera, with a brief cutaway around the 30-second mark to a screen-share of the three pricing tiers on heffron.com.au, then back to Meg.)

A fair question. We are not the right home for every SMSF in Australia and I would rather you find that out now than three months in. [pause]

Heffron tends to be the right fit if your fund has any of the following going on. A balance of around a million dollars or more (which puts you in the top quartile of self-managed funds in this country). Investments beyond cash and listed shares, so property, an unlisted trust, crypto, a collectable, a foreign asset, anything along those lines. You are at or near retirement, which means pensions, minimum drawdowns, and possibly Division 296 are now on your radar. Or your current accountant has retired, sold the practice, or simply stopped doing SMSFs (which is happening a lot at the moment, by the way). [pause]

We are probably not the right fit if your fund is small, sits entirely in cash and a couple of ETFs, and you are happy paying a few hundred dollars a year to a discount admin shop. There is nothing wrong with that setup. It just isn't where our team adds enough value to justify what we charge. [pause]

The other group we are a strong fit for, candidly, is trustees who have been burnt once. People who had their fund with a low-touch provider, hit a moment where the answer really mattered (an audit query, a death in the family, a contribution that went sideways), and discovered nobody knew their name when they rang up. If that sounds (a bit) like you, this is exactly the kind of conversation we are good at. [pause]

On the call we will tell you honestly which camp you sit in. If we are not the right fit, you will know within the first ten minutes and we will point you in a more sensible direction.

(Cutaway: a quick view of the Heffron homepage awards block, then back to Meg for the close.)

Video 3: What if I am already happy with my current accountant? →

Length: 120 seconds

(Meg to camera, warm tone, slight smile on the opening line.)

Good. I mean that. If your current accountant is doing a careful job of your fund, knows your name, returns your calls, and is across the law as it currently stands, then please keep them. The SMSF world is hard enough without changing things that work. [pause]

The reason a fair few of our trustee clients still ended up with us, though, is worth knowing about. There are a few common stories. One is that the accountant is excellent at general tax and business work but quietly hates SMSFs (they tend to be a small minority of the practice and the rules keep moving). Another is that the accountant is brilliant but happens to be the only person in the firm who actually understands your fund, and they are five years from retirement with no succession in place. A third version is that the relationship is great but the firm has recently outsourced the SMSF processing offshore and you have stopped recognising the work coming back. [pause]

A model that works well is to keep your accountant for everything else and bring us in just for the SMSF. We handle accounting, the tax return, audit coordination, and the technical questions on the fund. Your accountant handles you. Most trustees in this setup say their accountant is actually relieved, because the SMSF was the part of the file that was keeping them up at night. [pause]

You do not have to choose between us. And nothing about a 30-minute call commits you to changing anything. If after we talk you decide to stay exactly where you are, you have lost half an hour and gained a clearer view of how your fund compares. That seems like a reasonable trade.

(On-screen lower-third graphic: "Heffron plus your accountant: a common setup.")

Video 4: Why are we more expensive than the cheap SMSF providers? →

Length: 150 seconds

(Meg to camera, calm and direct, no defensive energy.)

I want to answer this one straight because it comes up on most of our first calls. Our trustee pricing starts at $3,170 including GST per year for a Streamlined fund, $3,745 for a Standard fund, and $4,320 for an Advanced fund. Those numbers are on our website. We do not hide them and we have not raised them quietly behind anyone's back. [pause]

You can absolutely pay less. There are providers in the market charging well under two thousand dollars a year for SMSF administration. The way they do that is real and worth understanding. Most of them process funds at scale, often offshore, with a software-led workflow and minimal human involvement. For a vanilla fund (a couple in accumulation, cash and listed shares, nothing complicated) that model works perfectly well most of the year. [pause]

Where it tends to fall over is the year something happens. A property purchase inside the fund. A move from accumulation to pension phase. A binding death benefit nomination that needs to actually work when it is needed. A contribution near the cap that has to be unwound. A Division 296 calculation. An ATO query about an in-house asset. In those moments you discover whether the person on the other end of the phone knows your fund or is simply opening it for the first time today. [pause]

What you pay us for is named relationship managers who know your file, qualified actuaries on staff for the technical calls, and a team that other SMSF firms ring up when they get stuck. Whether that is worth the difference depends entirely on what your fund is doing and what your tolerance for getting an ATO letter is. On the call we will help you work out, honestly, which side of that line your fund sits on.

(Screen-share showing the three-tier pricing table from heffron.com.au, hold for 6 seconds, then back to Meg.)

Video 5: What does Division 296 actually mean for me? →

Length: 150 seconds

(Meg to camera. Tone is matter-of-fact, mild eye-roll at the drafting.)

Division 296 is the new tax on people with more than three million dollars in super. It is the most-talked-about super change in a decade and depending on whose draft of the legislation you are reading on the day, it is either workable or (crazy?) properly silly. [pause]

Here is what you actually need to know. Firstly, the threshold is three million dollars across all of your super, not per fund. Secondly, the tax is on earnings (and Treasury defines 'earnings' in a specific way that is worth understanding rather than guessing about). The current draft no longer taxes unrealised capital gains, which was the worst feature of the original version. But there are still some genuine stings in the tail, particularly around what happens when a member dies, and the rules for working out the percentage that gets taxed are fiddlier than they look. [pause]

If your total super balance is well under three million and likely to stay there, Division 296 is essentially noise for you. We will say so on the call and not waste your time. [pause]

If you are anywhere near or above the threshold, the conversation gets more useful. There are decisions to make now. Whether to draw a pension you weren't going to draw, whether to wait on selling certain assets, whether to look at withdrawing from super and holding outside, whether to do nothing because the legislation might still change again. None of those answers are universal. They depend on your numbers, your spouse's numbers, your assets, and your plans. [pause]

Heffron writes most of the public commentary on this regulation (I do, on behalf of our team, in the AFR and Firstlinks). It is genuinely our specialist subject right now. If Division 296 is part of why you booked, please bring it up early in the call.

(Brief cutaway to one of Meg's published Firstlinks bylines on Div 296, then back to Meg for the close.)

Video 6: What should I have handy when we jump on the call? →

Length: 90 seconds

(Meg to camera, light tone, this is the easy one.)

Nothing fancy. You do not need to dig through filing cabinets or print anything out. The call is genuinely a conversation, not an audit. [pause]

If you can put your hands on three things before we speak, the call will be more useful for you. Roughly what is in the fund (so cash, listed shares, the wrap or platform name if you use one, any property, anything unusual). A rough figure for the total balance (within fifty thousand dollars is plenty). And the name of who currently does the work, whether that is an accountant, an administration firm, or yourself with software. [pause]

It is also useful if you happen to remember your most recent annual fee, because we can quickly tell you whether what you are paying is roughly in line with the market or sitting noticeably above or below it.

You do not need your TFN, you do not need the trust deed, and the most recent financial statements are not required either. If any of those become relevant later we will ask. The call runs for half an hour. Our aim is to understand your fund well enough to tell you something useful at the end of it. [pause]

Oh, and a glass of water. Half an hour goes faster than people expect.

(Quick on-screen text recap of the three useful items, then back to Meg's smile on the final line.)

Pre-Appointment Email Sequence 8 emails

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Email 1: A quick note before we chat →

Subject: A quick note before we chat
Preview: what to expect on the call, who we are, and one thing worth reading first.

SEND TIMING: Day 0, 1 hour after booking

Hi {{first_name}},

I'm Meg, Managing Director at Heffron. We're locked in for {{call_day}} at {{call_time}}, and one of our team will phone you on the number you gave us.

A few things before then so you're not walking into a cold conversation.

First, what the call actually is. It's a chat, not a pitch. We'll ask about your fund (assets, balance, where it sits now, what's worrying you about Division 296 if anything is), and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right home for it. Sometimes we aren't. If we think your accountant is doing a perfectly good job and the move would cost more than it's worth, we'll say so on the call.

Second, who we are in 30 seconds. We've been doing SMSF administration since 1998, back when there were fewer than 200,000 funds in Australia and they were regulated by APRA (can you imagine?). Our team has won SMSF Adviser's 'Administrator of the Year' five years running, and we consult to the ATO and Treasury when they're drafting the law. I personally write about SMSFs for the AFR, The Australian, and Firstlinks. None of which is the same as being cheap, because we aren't. Heffron is the firm other firms phone when the rules get murky.

Third, if you've got 4 minutes between now and the call, the most useful thing you can read is our Division 296 trustee guide at landing.heffron.com.au/division-296-news-and-resources. The guide explains how the tax actually works, who it bites, and what to do if you're over (or close to) the $3m threshold.

That's it. Talk soon.

Meg
Meg Heffron, Managing Director
Heffron

Email 2: The $3,170 question →

Subject: The $3,170 question
Preview: why we charge what we do and when the cheap option is genuinely fine.

SEND TIMING: Day 1, 8:30am

Hi {{first_name}},

Probably the question you're sitting on but haven't asked yet, so I'll ask it for you. Why does Heffron charge $3,170 (Streamlined) to $4,320 (Advanced) per year, when eSuperfund will do it for under $1,000, and your current accountant might be doing it as part of a bundle?

Fair question, and worth an honest answer.

The cheap end of the market is software-led. Your fund goes into a queue, gets processed by whoever picks up the next file, and the work is often done offshore. For a simple fund with one bank account and a parcel of listed shares, that model works fine. It's also genuinely useful that it exists.

What you're paying us for is different. You get a named relationship manager who knows your fund by name, a phone number that rings at our office in Maitland (not a chatbot), and a team of qualified actuaries and SMSF specialists reviewing the work. Those are the same people the ATO phones when they're writing rulings. And you get an opinion when the rules are uncertain, which they often are at the moment.

Division 296 is a good example. Its draft has changed twice in twelve months, and some of the death-benefit provisions are, in the technical phrasing of one of our senior staff, 'a design that will be loved by the lawyers'. If your fund is anywhere near the $3m line, the question is not 'is the admin cheap'. It's whether the person doing your admin is paying attention to the legislation that's about to bite. That's the trade-off the $3,170 buys.

If your fund is simple, low-balance, and the rules aren't keeping you up, the cheap option is genuinely fine. Tell us that on the call and we'll likely agree. We don't want clients we can't add value to.

Meg

Email 3: A story about a death benefit →

Subject: A story about a death benefit
Preview: an anonymised case from the past 18 months that shows what 'technical depth' actually means.

SEND TIMING: Day 1, 4:00pm

Hi {{first_name}},

A real (anonymised) example from the past 18 months, because it explains better than I can what 'technical depth' actually means in practice.

A trustee couple in their late 60s, around $3.4m in the fund between them. He passed away in late 2024. The fund structure had been set up years earlier by a perfectly competent local accountant: corporate trustee, the two of them as directors and members, super to be paid to the surviving spouse on first death, non-super estate assets to the kids from his first marriage.

It made sense at the time. Then Division 296 was drafted.

Under the new rules, the longer the surviving spouse takes to pay out the death benefit, the bigger the Division 296 tax bill becomes. And under the original draft, that bill could fall on the estate, which would have meant the kids (whom she had a frosty relationship with) effectively funding her tax via a smaller inheritance. The ATO is also signalling it'll watch hard for delays in paying benefits 'as soon as practicable'.

By the time the family came to us, the death benefit had been sitting in the fund for nine months. There was no deliberate delay involved, only the normal pace of grief and admin. We restructured the payment, documented the timing carefully, and worked through the actuarial implications with our in-house team. The family avoided a tax outcome that, on a back-of-envelope, would have cost them somewhere north of $40,000.

I'm telling you this for two reasons. First, if your fund is over (or near) $3m, the death-benefit provisions matter as much as the headline rate. Second, this is the kind of question we end up advising on every week. Cheap admin won't catch it. Your accountant might, if SMSFs are their specialty, though most general practice accountants won't.

If you'd rather watch than read, there's a 6-minute explainer of the Division 296 death-benefit rules here: landing.heffron.com.au/division-296-news-and-resources. Lyn Formica from our technical team walks through it.

Meg

Email 4: What it costs over 10 years →

Subject: What it costs over 10 years
Preview: the maths on the fee difference, and the cost of a single mistake.

SEND TIMING: Day 2, 9:00am

Hi {{first_name}},

People sometimes ask whether the higher Heffron fee is worth it 'over the long run'. Honest answer: it depends on your fund. Here's the maths so you can run it yourself.

Take a fund with $2.5m in a Standard-tier set-up. Heffron Standard is $3,745 per year. A cheap competitor is roughly $1,100 per year. Difference is $2,645 per year, or about $26,450 over a decade (ignoring inflation, which would push both numbers up roughly equally).

Now the other side of the ledger. The cost of a single Division 296 mistake on a $2.5m balance, where (say) the percentage calculation was set up wrong because the start-of-year and end-of-year balances weren't tracked properly, sits somewhere between $5,000 and $40,000 depending on the year. A contribution-cap breach, fully assessed, will set you back $10,000 to $20,000. One TBAR lodgement missed in a way that triggers an ATO review costs you lost weeks of your life and occasionally penalty interest. A pension-phase actuarial certificate handled incorrectly so the fund loses its tax exemption on a portion of earnings: thousands per year, ongoing.

So the question isn't 'is $26,450 a lot of money over a decade'. It is. The question is 'what's the probability of one of the above happening to my fund in that decade, and what does the expected cost look like'.

For a simple fund well under $3m, the probability is genuinely low. The cheap option is probably the right answer and I'll tell you that on the call.

For a fund near or over $3m, with property, with a pension already running, with non-arm's-length issues to think about, or with a death-benefit plan in place, the probability isn't low. It's roughly certain that at least one of those things will need careful handling in the next ten years.

The fee difference is small money relative to the risk. That's the only honest case I can make for paying more.

Meg

Email 5: Useful even if we never speak →

Subject: Useful even if we never speak
Preview: a 12-question trustee self-review checklist you can work through with a pen.

SEND TIMING: Day 2, 3:30pm

Hi {{first_name}},

Regardless of what happens on our call, this is the most useful single document I can put in your hands today.

It's a checklist we built for trustees who are reviewing their fund ahead of Division 296 commencing. Twelve questions, no jargon, takes about 20 minutes to work through with your latest member statement in front of you.

The checklist is at landing.heffron.com.au/division-296-news-and-resources (look for 'Trustee Self-Review Checklist'). Print it, work through it with a pen, bring the answers to our call if you want to. Or don't. It's yours to use either way.

The questions that catch people out most:
- Question 4 (whether your contribution mix in the last 24 months has created a TSB problem you haven't noticed yet)
- Question 8 (whether your binding death benefit nomination is still valid, or quietly expired)
- Question 11 (whether your pension-phase split is documented in a way that survives ATO review)

If those mean nothing to you, the checklist will explain each one in plain English. If they all mean something to you, you're probably already in good shape.

Meg

Email 6: My accountant already does this →

Subject: My accountant already does this
Preview: when staying with your accountant is right, and when a co-existence model makes more sense.

SEND TIMING: Day 3, 8:00am

Hi {{first_name}},

The second-most-common reason people don't move their fund: 'my accountant already does the admin and I trust them.'

This is often the right reason to stay. I want to say that clearly before I write anything else. A good SMSF-specialist accountant who knows your fund and reads Treasury drafts in their downtime is a perfectly fine home for the work. Some of the smartest SMSF practitioners in the country are sole-practice accountants, and we send our hardest technical questions to a handful of them.

But two patterns we see repeatedly are worth flagging.

The first pattern is the accountant who does maybe a dozen SMSFs as a small part of a broader practice. Conscientious people, generally, who are not SMSF specialists. They do the work in software, lodge what needs to be lodged, and don't have time to read every Treasury draft. With Division 296 on the table, NALI rules tightening, and ATO interpretation moving constantly, that's a difficult position to be in. The issue isn't capability. SMSFs have simply become too technical to do at quarter-time.

The second pattern is the long-standing accountant who's approaching retirement. Their succession plan may not include the SMSF work. We get calls from new trustees almost every week whose previous accountant has retired or sold the practice, and the receiving firm doesn't really want the SMSF book. Better to have a conversation about it before that happens than after.

If your accountant is an SMSF specialist, has under 50 funds across their book, attends SMSF Association events, and is under 60: they are likely the right home and we will tell you so on the call.

If any of those four don't apply, we should at least talk about a co-existence model. We do the admin, your accountant keeps the tax-return signature and the client relationship. That's how most of our adviser-channel work runs.

Meg

Email 7: Why this year matters →

Subject: Why this year matters
Preview: genuine context on the Division 296 timeline, not fake urgency.

SEND TIMING: Day 3, 12:00pm

Hi {{first_name}},

I want to be careful here, because I detest fake urgency in marketing emails. So this is genuine context, not a 'spots filling fast' line.

The Division 296 legislation will commence on 1 July 2026 (assuming the bill passes in roughly its current form, which is the working assumption across the industry). That gives anyone with a balance over (or near) $3m around 14 months to think about the structure of their fund before the new tax starts biting. Things that are worth examining before commencement, not after:
- Whether the contribution mix you've been running needs to change
- Whether assets that are likely to realise large gains are best held inside or outside super
- How the pension-phase split is set up between members in a couple's fund
- What the binding death benefit nomination says, and whether the timing implications under the new rules have been thought through

None of these are emergencies. None of them require rushed decisions. But they all get harder, and in some cases more expensive, if they're addressed after 1 July 2026 rather than before.

That's the only reason I'd suggest the conversation matters this year rather than next year. Both the legislation and the commencement date are real, and so is the cost of leaving adjustments until afterwards.

If your fund is well under $3m and likely to stay there, none of this applies to you and our call will be shorter and easier. Tell us that upfront.

Meg

Email 8: Tomorrow morning →

Subject: Tomorrow morning
Preview: what I'll ask you, what I'll tell you, and how to reschedule if you need to.

SEND TIMING: Day 3, 5:30pm

Hi {{first_name}},

Quick note before we speak tomorrow at {{call_time}}.

What I'll ask you on the call (so you can have it in front of you if you want):
- Approximate current balance, and whether it's spread across members
- Asset mix at a high level (cash, shares, property, anything else)
- Whether you're in accumulation, pension phase, or both
- Who currently handles the admin, and what's prompted you to look around
- The thing keeping you up, if anything is

What I'll tell you on the call:
- Whether we think your fund needs us, your current setup, or something cheaper
- If us, which tier (Streamlined, Standard, or Advanced) and why
- What the move actually involves (it is genuinely straightforward, the previous accountant hands over a file, we re-establish the fund on our side, audit picks up from where it was)
- What the first 90 days look like in plain English

The call is 30 minutes. If we run over, that's because there's a real question to work through, and we don't charge for the time.

If something has come up and you need to push the call, the calendar link in your booking confirmation lets you reschedule directly. No need to email.

Otherwise, we'll phone you on {{phone_number}} at {{call_time}} tomorrow.

Meg
Meg Heffron, Managing Director
Heffron

Broadcast Emails 9 emails

↓

Email 1: The Div 296 sting in the tail →

Subject: The div 296 sting in the tail
Preview: A small drafting choice in Div 296 is about to keep estate lawyers very busy.

SEND TIMING: Tuesday 10am AEST (high open-rate window)
STRUCTURE: Misconception → Reframe → Teach (Daniel-style)
CTA LEVEL: none

When most people read the revised Division 296 draft, the headline they take away is the win: unrealised gains are out. Treasury listened, and most readers walk away thinking the new version is fairer overall. Largely they are right, which is exactly the part that is going to distract everyone from the actual problem.

Buried inside the draft are the rules for what happens when a high-balance member dies. The legislation asks the fund to keep treating the deceased's account as still in 'accumulation' until the death benefit is actually paid. Government drafters would like to capture the last skerrick of tax from high balance members who die. Reasonable goal, ugly drafting.

Here is the scenario that keeps coming up in our consulting line.

A couple are the sole members of the fund and the only directors of the corporate trustee. The structure made perfect sense because all of the super was always going to be paid to the surviving spouse, with non-super assets going to the kids from a previous marriage. Then one of them dies with a balance well over $3m.

The surviving spouse is now the sole director. They read the legislation. Within that legislation they notice that as long as the death benefit sits in the fund, it keeps attracting Division 296 'earnings' on its share of the balance. Crucially, they also notice that the bill belongs to the deceased's estate, which is paying out to those kids from the previous marriage. The kids the spouse has never really liked.

So the spouse takes their sweet time. The death benefit gets paid 'as soon as practicable', which apparently means whenever they get around to it. And the Div 296 bill quietly grows.

Sounds like a design that will be loved by the lawyers.

This matters for trustees and advisers because the ATO has flagged 'as soon as practicable' as the area it will be watching hardest. That phrase used to be a soft compliance prompt. It is about to have a real revenue impact, which means real audit attention.

If you have any high-balance clients with blended families, the conversation about death benefit timing is now a tax conversation, not just an estate conversation. Both need to be in the same room.

We will keep writing about Div 296 as the legislation moves. For the deeper technical version, our last Firstlinks piece is the place to start.

Meg

Email 2: Your accountant is excellent at tax →

Subject: Your accountant is excellent at tax
Preview: There is a quiet line between general accounting and SMSF specialty most clients never see.

SEND TIMING: Friday 10am AEST
STRUCTURE: Trope dismantling / permission-giving (Structure 5, Ben-style mixed teaching)
CTA LEVEL: soft

A question that lands in our inbox often enough to write about: "My accountant has done my SMSF for years and it has always been fine. Do I really need a specialist?"

Let me answer it the way I would on a phone call, not the way a marketing brochure would.

Your accountant is probably excellent at what they spend most of their week doing. Business returns, individual tax, BAS, family trust distributions. That is a lot of ground to cover. Just the Tax Act alone runs into thousands of pages and changes every year.

Beside it sits the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act as a separate animal. Different definitions, different concepts of 'income' and 'contributions' and 'benefits', a different penalty regime, a different regulator focus. SMSF rules then sit on top of that, with their own ATO interpretations, private binding rulings, and a steady drip of Treasury changes.

A general practitioner accountant can keep on top of an SMSF when the fund is simple and stable. Cash, listed shares, no pensions in payment, no contributions near the cap, no related-party anything. Funds like that will be fine in most hands.

Trouble starts in funds where something material changes during the year. Maybe a client retires and starts a pension, or the fund buys a property, or a member uses the bring-forward provisions. Other examples: a family member moves into a fund-owned property "just for six months", a bequest lands in the wrong place, or Division 296 starts to bite. Each of those is a moment where the difference between a good accountant and an SMSF specialist becomes the difference between a clean year and a 'rectification request' from the ATO.

None of this is a knock on your accountant. It is just a recognition that SMSFs are now a specialty, the same way insolvency or transfer pricing is. People who genuinely know super spend most of their week on super.

Here is the practical version of the answer. If your fund is simple and your accountant has been doing SMSFs as a real part of their book for years, you are probably fine. If your fund is becoming more complex (pensions, property, high balances, family dynamics, Div 296), then either your accountant needs to lift their SMSF hours per week, or your fund needs someone whose whole week is SMSFs.

Obviously we are biased about which way that goes. Our team has been doing only SMSFs since 1998 and we educate the experts. To talk through whether your current setup is the right one, the consultation form is on the contact page at heffron.com.au. No pressure either side.

Meg

Email 3: NALI, the quieter landmine →

Subject: NALI, the quieter landmine
Preview: Non-arm's-length income is the rule that punishes good intentions inside a fund.

SEND TIMING: Tuesday 3pm AEST
STRUCTURE: Concept → Framework → Takeaway (Daniel-style)
CTA LEVEL: none

Division 296 gets all the airtime. Quietly doing more damage to more funds is NALI.

Non-arm's-length income, for anyone who has not had the pleasure. Here is the principle in plain English: if an SMSF receives income or makes a gain on a non-arm's-length basis, that income gets taxed at the top marginal rate (currently 45%) instead of the concessional rate. This rule exists to stop members artificially shovelling value into their fund through favourable transactions. Where it gets uncomfortable is in the execution.

Back in 2019 the rules broadened. Now the rule reaches non-arm's-length expenses as well as income, which means if a member or a related party provides a service or an asset to the fund 'on the cheap', the income that asset eventually produces can be tainted. In some readings, every dollar of that asset's income is now taxed at 45%, not just the discount.

Places we see this most often in client funds:

A member who is also a tradesperson doing renovations on a fund-owned property at mate's rates (or for free).

A member who is an accountant doing the fund's own SMSF accounting work at a discount or for free, where the work is materially below market rate.

An asset bought from a related party at less than market value, especially business real property transferred in-specie.

A member providing personal guarantees or other supports to a fund-owned investment without proper documentation.

Loans from related parties on terms that are nicer than what an arm's-length lender would offer. LRBAs with non-arm's-length terms are the classic.

The catch with NALI is that the consequences do not match the size of the discount. A member doing $500 of accounting work for free can taint years of income. Penalty structures are not proportional here, they are binary.

A boring-sounding fix actually works: documentation and discipline. Anyone connected to a member who is doing anything for the fund needs to either charge market rate (and have evidence of what market is) or not do it at all. Most funds get into NALI territory by accident, doing favours that felt obviously fine at the time.

If you have a fund where related parties are deeply involved in the asset or service mix, this is worth a sit-down. The ATO is paying more attention since the 2019 changes, not less.

Meg

Email 4: 27 years of SMSF admin →

Subject: 27 years of SMSF admin
Preview: A short note on what 27 years of doing one thing teaches you.

SEND TIMING: Friday 10am AEST
STRUCTURE: Client Story / Coaching Moment (Structure 4, Ben-style)
CTA LEVEL: none

Something I find myself saying more often the longer we do this: the SMSF sector has changed shape underneath us at least three times since we started Heffron in 1998.

Back when we began, SMSFs accounted for around 10% of superannuation savings. There were fewer than 200,000 of them in existence. They were regulated by APRA, not the ATO. Most accountants did not really know what to do with them, and the ones who did were viewed as a little risqué.

We were a tiny team in a home office. I think I greeted my first hire at the front door with a grumpy one-year-old on my shoulder. Luckily for her, I was not involved in the interview and neither was the toddler.

Eventually the sector went through its first real boom, followed by the GFC, then the 2017 transfer balance cap changes that re-wrote what pensions look like, then COVID and the asset reallocation that came with it. Now Division 296.

Each of those was, at the time, the thing that was going to change the sector forever. All of them did, a bit. None of them ended SMSFs.

What 27 years has actually taught me, and the reason I keep writing this column, is simpler than I would have guessed at the start.

Trustees who do best are not the ones who get the asset allocation perfect or who time the legislation. The ones who do best have a small group of people around them who know their fund by name. A relationship manager who has read their file. An accountant or adviser who picks up the phone. An audit partner who has actually seen the property in question.

This is also what has not changed about Heffron, deliberately. Our independence, our technical depth, our named relationship managers, our slightly unfashionable view that picking up the phone is faster than another portal. Those are the things we will hold on dearly to.

Watch this space. There are 27 more interesting years ahead.

Meg

Email 5: TBAR, contribution caps, and the quiet drift →

Subject: TBAR, caps, and the quiet drift
Preview: Two perennial SMSF mechanics, and the small drift that catches good trustees out.

SEND TIMING: Tuesday 10am AEST
STRUCTURE: Common Phrase → Reframe → Core Insight (Structure 6)
CTA LEVEL: none

"It's just a contribution. How wrong can it go?"

A sentence we hear in some form a few times every quarter, usually from a thoughtful trustee who has just done something quite expensive.

Honest answer: contributions are the part of the SMSF year that gets the most casual treatment and the second-most punishing consequences after NALI. Rules look simple from the outside. Where the trouble lives is in how the rules interact with each other.

Three patterns we see often.

First, the bring-forward provisions. Non-concessional contributions are capped at $120,000 a year, and members under 75 can bring forward up to three years to make a larger single contribution. Here is the catch: the bring-forward is triggered automatically the moment a member exceeds the annual cap, whether or not they meant to use it. Trigger it accidentally in year one and you have just locked out the next two years. We see this constantly with clients who made a large one-off contribution from a property sale without checking the math first.

Second, the total super balance trigger. Both the bring-forward and the non-concessional cap shut off entirely once a member's total super balance crosses the threshold (currently $2m). That 'crosses' bit is measured at the start of the financial year. A member who was under at 30 June and is over at the time of contribution can still contribute. Same member, if over at 30 June, cannot, even if they made a big withdrawal in July. Order of operations matters more than the running balance.

Third, TBAR timing. Transfer Balance Account Reports are now quarterly for almost all funds. Most often the mistake we see is not the report itself, it is funds doing the underlying paperwork (pension commencements, commutations, lump sum withdrawals) cleanly but reporting them late. ATO matches what is in the fund's records to what was reported. Where mismatches appear, they sit in the system and surface at audit.

The unifying point across all three: small timing decisions in an SMSF compound into large tax outcomes. June 30 is not just a deadline. It is the moment a lot of the year's structural choices get locked in.

If your fund is in a year where contributions, property, or pension commencements are in play, this is the year to be deliberate about the order things happen. The mad rush around pre-30 June planning is real for a reason.

Meg

Email 6: New trustees, no advisers →

Subject: New trustees, no advisers
Preview: A structural shift in the sector that nobody is quite naming yet.

SEND TIMING: Tuesday 3pm AEST
STRUCTURE: Contrarian Call-Out → Dismantle → Alternative Framework (Structure 3)
CTA LEVEL: soft

The standard line in our sector is that SMSFs are a financial-adviser product. A client sits with their adviser, the adviser identifies the case for self-management, eventually a new fund is set up. The adviser stays in the loop throughout, and compliance flows through accountant and admin.

Every year, that story is becoming less true.

I sat on a panel at the Class Thought Leadership Breakfast a few months ago where we walked through what the data is showing: the vast majority of new trustees coming into SMSFs are now doing so off their own bat. Not because an adviser sat them down. Because they read something, listened to a podcast, talked to a peer, did the math themselves, and decided.

Is this good, bad, or indifferent? There are good arguments in every direction.

A dismissive version: these people do not know what they are doing, they are coming in on the back of property spruikers and crypto YouTube, and they will be the next compliance disaster.

More honestly: a generation of Australians has watched their parents' super, their employer super, and the financial advice sector since the Royal Commission, and concluded they would rather hold the steering wheel themselves. That is not an irrational reaction.

What this means for the people who serve the sector is the actual question.

For accountants and advisers, it means more of your work is now repair work. Funds that have been DIY-administered for two or three years before anyone professional has looked inside them. Trustees who have made choices that were defensible at the time but built up structural problems. The technical lift on those files is higher than on funds set up properly from year one.

For admin providers (us), it means more direct trustee enquiries from people who have never had an adviser and have no plans to get one. Most often the ones we end up helping are the ones who arrive with a specific question they cannot answer from a blog post: a Div 296 strategy, a complex pension question, an estate matter where the BDBN is fighting the will.

For the sector as a whole, it means the entry point into 'serious SMSF advice' is shifting. People are no longer onboarded into the professional advice system before they start a fund. Instead, they onboard themselves and then come looking for help when something specific arises.

We are leaning into that. Our Education Bites have moved from subscription-only to individually purchasable specifically because people now want a single topic explained without committing to a CPD programme. If you have an SMSF and a question you cannot get answered from a blog post, those Bites are at heffron.com.au under Education.

Meg

Email 7: Binding nominations and reversionary pensions →

Subject: BDBNs versus reversionary pensions
Preview: Two ways to control where your super goes, and the moments they fight each other.

SEND TIMING: Friday 10am AEST
STRUCTURE: Concept → Framework → Takeaway with embedded CTA (Structure 1 + 2 hybrid)
CTA LEVEL: embedded

Two of the most common ways to control where SMSF benefits go on death are binding death benefit nominations and reversionary pensions. On the surface they do similar-sounding things. In practice they do not do the same thing. Cases where it matters most are the cases where a member assumed they did.

A binding death benefit nomination, or BDBN, is a direction from the member to the trustee about who gets their benefits when they die. Where it is valid (correct dependants, correct form, correct witnesses, correct refresh cycle for non-lapsing versus lapsing), the trustee has to follow it. Benefits can be paid as a lump sum or as a new pension to the nominated beneficiary.

A reversionary pension is built into the pension itself. When the original pensioner dies, the pension automatically continues to the reversionary beneficiary, usually the spouse. There is no trustee discretion to exercise. Payments keep running, unchanged, with a new name on them.

Where they work together, the structure is clean. Reversionary handles the pension assets. BDBN handles the accumulation balance and any unallocated reserves. Each does its job.

Where they fight, it tends to be in one of three situations.

First scenario: a pension was started with a reversionary in place, then the member updated their BDBN years later and named a different beneficiary, often without realising that the reversionary 'overrides' the BDBN for that pension's assets. Their estate plan in the head does not match their estate plan in the fund.

Second scenario: a reversionary pensioner does not have the capacity to keep the pension running cleanly, and the family wants to commute and pay a lump sum to the estate, but the reversionary has already triggered. Now the receiving beneficiary is stuck with assets in the pension structure that they cannot easily move.

Third scenario: a BDBN nominates the estate, the will then directs the super proceeds elsewhere, but the reversionary on a pension means that pension never hits the estate at all. So the will is silent on assets it never sees.

A useful takeaway is not 'pick one over the other'. Both are useful. The practical takeaway is that the death plan inside the fund and the will outside the fund have to be read together at least every few years. Pension document wording, BDBN form, and the will all need to point the same direction.

To get a structured walkthrough of how these interact across different family scenarios, our Education Bite on death benefits and estate planning covers the common combinations and the traps. That Bite is one of our most-bought for a reason. It sits in the Education section at heffron.com.au.

Meg

Email 8: The minimum drawdown trap →

Subject: The minimum drawdown trap
Preview: A small year-end miss that quietly converts a pension back to accumulation.

SEND TIMING: Tuesday 3pm AEST
STRUCTURE: Misconception → Reframe → Teach → Embedded CTA → Keep Teaching (Structure 2)
CTA LEVEL: embedded

There is a common assumption among retired SMSF members that once a pension is running, the only thing they need to watch is the headline drawdown rate. Pull at least the minimum, stay above the floor, the pension keeps running. Simple.

Mostly true. Where the year sometimes comes off the rails is in the 'mostly'.

Here is the technical position. A pension that fails to pay the required minimum amount in a financial year stops being a pension for tax purposes from 1 July of that year. Not from the date of the miss. Retrospectively, from the beginning of that year. Earnings on the pension assets for the entire year are then taxed at 15% in accumulation rather than tax-free in pension. Whatever credit was sitting on the member's transfer balance account from the original commencement does not reverse just because the pension failed; cleaning that up is its own paperwork.

How much of a trap that becomes depends on the year's earnings. In a strong year with $400,000 of pension-asset earnings, missing the minimum by $200 in June can convert into roughly $60,000 of avoidable tax. A miss does not have to be intentional. We see it caused by bank errors, payment timing across 30 June, members losing capacity mid-year, and the very specific case of a member dying just before year-end with no time to top up.

The fix on the way in is boring and effective.

Set the pension payment as an automated monthly transfer from the fund's cash account, with the annual minimum spread across the twelve months and a buffer above the floor. Reconcile in May, not in late June. If the cash account is light at any point during the year, deal with it then, not at the deadline.

For our administration clients we handle this as part of the year-round review process: minimum and maximum tracking, pension payment confirmation, a flag if the fund is drifting toward a shortfall in April or May, time to act in May. Pension failures do not happen because we are paying attention through the year, not just at the end. If your fund is on a different admin model and you want a sense of how that part of the service works in practice, our consultation form is at heffron.com.au.

A deeper point worth holding onto is that pension phase is not a 'set and forget' state. From the outside it looks like one because the rules are friendly. Those friendly rules have hard edges, and the hard edges sit at the year boundary. Anyone running a pension should know exactly where their minimum sits in May, every year, without having to ask.

Meg

Email 9: Meg's Musings, what's on the desk →

Subject: Meg's musings, what's on the desk
Preview: A quick round-up of what we are watching, writing, and arguing about this month.

SEND TIMING: Friday 10am AEST (end of month)
STRUCTURE: Story-driven recap (Structure 4 lite, Ben-style mixed with newsletter recap)
CTA LEVEL: soft

Welcome to this month's Heffron Highlights. A short note on what is occupying us, because it has been one of those months.

Division 296 is still moving. Now the version of the legislation being debated has the death benefit timing changes I wrote about earlier in this sequence, plus a few smaller 'tidy up' items. We are watching the committee process closely. Once the next set of amendments lands a follow-up Firstlinks piece will be on the way; I will not pretend to know exactly when.

The new Heffron platform has had its second wave of clients moved across. Education clients are now seeing their courses, events, and CPD records in one place. Administration is being staged in over the rest of the year. If you are an existing client and you have not had a transition note yet, you will.

Our Division 296 Master Class is fully booked for the next run, which both pleases me and slightly alarms me about how much energy the sector is having to put into one piece of legislation. A second run will open in the back half of the year. If you are an adviser or accountant whose clients are sitting in the $3m+ range, that is the one to flag.

The team has been quietly working through what the 'new trustees coming in without advisers' shift means for the Education Bites catalogue. I expect we will release two or three new Bites this year aimed at trustees specifically rather than only professionals. Like all fine artists, we take requests; if there is a topic you have been hunting for and cannot find a clean source on, drop us a line.

One quieter mention. We have had a slightly larger run of estate-related enquiries from clients than usual. Whether that is Div 296 awareness, demographic timing, or both, I am not sure. If you have not reviewed your fund's BDBN, reversionary settings, and the way they interact with your will in the last two years, that is the project worth picking up next quarter. Email 7 in this sequence covers some of the patterns we see most often.

Watch this space.

Meg Heffron, Heffron

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