Exempted Church and Charitable Investments

This section contains details of specific exempted funds and accounts administered by church and charitable organisations which were exempted from deeming prior to 1 January 2010.

From 1 January 2010, deeming exemptions ceased to be granted for new funds and for new investments placed into funds which had been granted a deeming exemption prior to 1 January 2010.

Pensioners who had investments in an exempt fund prior to 1 January 2010 will continue to have their original investment exempted from deeming.  T — he actual interest earned will be counted as income under the income test.

If a pensioner puts more money into their already exempt investment or makes a new investment with a church and charitable institution on or after 1 January 2010, the deeming exemption will only apply to the amount in — vested prior to 1 January 2010.

Each exempted church and charitable investments entry displays alphabetically the names of church and charitable organisations which have had specific funds and accounts exempted from the deeming provisions prior to 1 January 2010, along with the exemption date to be used in assessing service pension or ISS entitlement.

The inclusion of a church or charitable organisation in this listing does not mean that all of the funds and accounts administered by that organisation are exempt.  Only the funds and accounts specified in the listing have been granted an exemption.  If a pensioner puts more money into their already exempt investment or makes a new investment with a church and charitable institution on or after 1 January 2010, the deeming exemption will only apply to the amount invested prior to 1 January 2010.

Any funds or accounts which do not appear in this listing must be assessed as financial assets and deemed accordingly.  If a pensioner claims an exemption for a fund or account which does not appear in the listing, the case should be referred to the Investment Database Unit (IDU).

The information provided in the exempted funds and accounts listing is as follows:

Church or Charitable Organisation Name:

The names of the church or charitable organisations administering the

exempted fund/s or account/s will be listed alphabetically.

Fund or Account Name:

The specific names of the funds or accounts which have been exempted prior to 1 January 2010 will appear alphabetically under the church or charitable organisation name.

Exemption Date:

The effective date of the exemption will appear directly below the specific fund/s or account/s which have been exempted.  If a pensioner puts more money into their already exempt investment or makes a new investment with a church and charitable institution on or after 1 January 2010, the deeming exemption will only apply to the amount invested prior to 1 January 2010.

Income Value:

If the fund or account is earning actual income, the actual interest rate (%) must be assessed under the normal income test (eg. if a fund or account is  earning actual interest of say 4%, the income to be held will be 4% of the current investment value).

The fund or account is only exempt from the deemed income rules, not the

normal income test rules.

As the register does not contain details of actual interest rates paid on

exempted fund/s or account/s, the examiner must contact the client or

organisation to find out the actual rate of interest paid, and that actual rate

must be assessed for income test purposes.

Asset Value:

The fund or account is only exempt from the deemed income rules, not the

asset test rules.  The full asset value must be assessed for assets test purposes.

PIPS Recording Procedures:

As these investments are in the form of loans and accounts, they will not appear on the DVA Investment Databases, and processing staff must manually edit the investment on PIPS PC and re-set the exemption indicator from 'No' to 'Yes', updating actual interest rate details and the current asset value.