Heffron launches free online wizard to help calculate personal transfer balance cap

Meg Heffron

Accountants and advisers can now calculate their client’s new personal transfer balance cap, with the launch of Heffron’s new calculator, free in their online portal.

The calculator has been developed to tackle the upcoming transfer balance cap increase on 1 July 2021, which is the first increase since the cap was introduced on 1 July, 2017.

Heffron Managing Director, Meg Heffron, says while the headline increase is from $1.6- million to $1.7-million, it’s important to remember not everyone is entitled to the full $100,000 adjustment.

“People will have their own personal transfer balance caps, which could be $1.6-million, $1.7-million or somewhere in between.”

While personal transfer balance caps will be calculated over time by the Australian Taxation Office, it will be reliant on the correct and timely reporting of actual transactions like starting or commuting pensions. This is not useful for advisers, accountants and clients who are planning ahead.

Unique to the market, the Heffron Transfer Balance Cap calculator addresses this issue by allowing transactions that have already happened (or are going to happen) up until 30 June 2021, to be entered. The tool will prompt users with helpful hints to make sure the right data is entered for less common situations (for example, inheriting a pension from a spouse). It will then calculate the client’s personal transfer balance cap on 30 June 2021, allowing for their individual indexation entitlement.

Meg Heffron says it’s a tool where you input the data and we calculate the amount based on your particular situation.

“It’s quick, easy to use and absolutely accurate. For accountants and advisers, it provides certainty around how this complicated legislation works and makes it easy to get a key piece of information that is vital for advising clients now.” Heffron continued.