Investors who tried to capitalise on the $1 million tax free window introduced last year may have lost over 16 per cent of their superannuation money due to the falling sharemarket.
“Following overnight falls, investors that placed the million dollars into the sharemarket via their super fund would have only $840,000 now,” accountantsRus chief executive Adrian Raftery said.
A lot of the strategies put together by financial advisers before 30 June 2007 involved selling assets like property or businesses to put into their super, he said.
“If they held onto their other assets for longer then they would probably be worth more than the price they sold for,” he said.
On top of the falling value of their fund, investors now may be facing capital gains tax because they have sold their investments.
Raftery said that the real winners are those with self managed superannuation funds who have not invested their money.
“They have been earning between four to six per cent in the bank accounts with relatively low risk and now can look at being active and buy some cheap shares,” Raftery said.
accountantsRus is a network of 62 accounting firms across Australia.
