The ATO produces a report on SMSFs every quarter. There are some interesting takeaways within the most recent report.
How many Self-Managed Super Funds are there?
Over the last 4 years establishments of SMFS have increased and wind ups have decreased, meaning we now have more SMSFs and members than ever with 25,760 new funds being created last year alone. There is now 598,452 SMSFs and 1,123,949 members of SMSFs in Australia.
What assets are people investing in with their funds?
The top 3 investments within SMSFs include listed shares ($238Billion), cash and term deposits ($149Billion) and unlisted trusts ($112Billion). Meanwhile, residential property investments have increased from $28Billion to $47Billion in the last 4 years. People may also find it interesting that there was no money in cryptocurrency through SMSFs as recently as March 2019, and there is currently $228Million in cryptocurrency.
How many members does the average funds have?
The majority of SMSFs have 2 members, which you may assume is made up in large part by couples. Currently, 69% of all funds have 2 members and it has been around this percentage for many years. This leaves 23% of funds with just 1 member and only 6% of funds have either 3 or 4 members. This shows that married couples are much more attracted to opening a SMSF, mainly because they can pool their assets and invest in a tax effective way.
What age are members of funds?
The data shows that people become members around the age of 50. The age ranges containing the highest percentages of members are between 50 and 84. Interestingly, the 60–64-year-old bracket makes up 13.1% of total members and is therefore the age that is most heavily invested in SMSFs. This is most likely because SMSFs don’t become cost effective until you have a balance of $250,000 or more and people below the age of 50 will be unlikely to have this amount of money as an initial balance.
Between males and females there is not too much difference. 52.8% of fund members are male and 47.2% of members are female.
What is the income of the average SMSF members?
Most members of SMSFs have taxable incomes between $0 and $60,000. Members in the $0 to $60,000 income range make up 52% of all SMSF members. This number could include a large amount of people who have retired and are currently living off the income of their SMSF. Outside of this, the $100,000 to $150,000 income range is the next highest at 11.5%, beyond this income the number of members decreases.
What is the size of most SMSFs?
Most funds fall within the asset range of $500,000 - $1Million, with 25.8% of funds falling in this category. Almost 90% of all funds have between $200,000 and $5Million in assets. Not many funds have lower than $200,000 in assets.
Source: ATO
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