Self-Managed Superannuation Funds (SMSFs) have been the subject of a number of myths which the industry needs to counter, according to AMP head of policy and technical, Peter Burgess.
Addressing the SMSF Association national conference in Melbourne, Burgess said that amongst the myths were that SMSFs should be prudential lay regulated and that they were guilty of asset concentration around cash and bluechip domestic equities.
He said the notion that SMSFs needed to be prudential lye regulated was misconceived because inevitably then trustees of self-managed funds were the members of those funds.
Burgess said imposing prudential regulation would be tantamount to asking those trustees to keep a promise to themselves.
He said that where allocation was concerned it needed to be remembered that recent research had suggested that most SMSF trustees held 50 per cent of their wealth outside super and that much of their exposure to bluechips such as BHP was also delivering am exposure to international markets.
On the question of Limited Recourse Borrowing Arrangements (LBRAs), Burgess said it was wrong to suggest that they were running out of control and that, in any case, the regime was open to adjustment in preference to repeal.
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