“Don’t lose your hard earned Super!" by Steve Marsten

Recently I have been contacted by a company that “found” my lost superannuation funds! For a fee of $250 they could obtain it. Now obtaining access to your lost super is quite easy for anyone. It simply needs some basic knowledge of the internet; your tax file number; your full name and date of birth. Type in “Find lost super” on your browser and you are underway.

This is handy if you have ever changed your name or address and in today’s environment where you could change jobs several times throughout your working life, it can be easy to lose track of where you super is                                                                                                      being paid.

Having several superfund accounts could mean that fees and charges are reducing your overall super investments. The ATO believes there is around $17 Billion owing to account holders and hence it is conceivable that they are holding monies on your behalf.

The funds end up in the “consolidated revenue” bin when superfunds transfer balances of what they consider, are small or inactive accounts, directly to the ATO.

There are two ways to find these funds – The ATO Website encourages you to establish a myGov account which I do not encourage anyone to do. It is the ATO’s Big Brother portal so they can keep a closer eye on each taxpayer and it is a headache for most who go there.

The second option is AUSfund. It’s a similar option however it is sensitive to spelling, name changes and whether you used a middle name for a particular superfund or not.

The other interesting fact though, that many people often overlook especially those with Self Managed Superfunds, is that if they were previously receiving dividend cheques and lost them, then often the Share management companies simply register the “unpaid cheques” with the State  Revenue Offices. Most of Australia’s share management companies are registered in NSW or Victoria. Hence it pays to carry out a search on the State Revenue Office’s websites as well.

In my case, I found over $600 in lost super sitting in the Victorian State Revenue Office. Don’t get caught up in the “offer to find” super when it’s so easy to do it yourself!

To make sure you are not giving back your hard earned superannuation contact Steve and Tina at Sothertons and we will show you how to retrieve your funds efficiently. Call us on 4972 1300.