Policy

Assessing life interests

The value of any life interest of a person is a disregarded asset unless it was created:

Trusts - constructive, resulting, secret or implied

A court may decide that a trust exists due to the conduct of the relevant parties, although no action has been taken to declare a trust in writing.

Example: These trusts include:

• constructive trusts,

• resulting trusts,

• secret trusts, and

• implied trusts.

Assessment of constructive, resulting, secret or implied trusts

Last amended: 10 March 2011

Purpose of superannuation

The primary purpose of a superannuation scheme is to provide its beneficiaries with financial resources and other benefits during their retirement. Other benefits in some schemes include death benefits for surviving dependants and disability benefits. The Australian superannuation system is intended to fund higher standards of retirement living than continuing reliance on [glossary:income support pensions :79] as the primary source of retirement income.

This section contains information on the types of assessable income from property.

Assessment of a non-pensioner partner's superannuation investments

Amounts in [glossary:superannuation funds:257] owned by a non-pensioner [glossary:partner:370] are exempt from assessment for the pensioner's [glossary:income support pension:79] until the non-pensioner partner reaches [glossary:pension age:316], regardless of whether or not the non-pensioner partner claims pension. When the non-pensioner partner reaches pension age their superannuation affects the pensioner's entitlements as follows:

This section contains information on the assessment of income from overseas, including pension, war pension, war widow/er's pension  and restitution payments.

This section contains descriptions and definitions of the different assessment categories of [glossary:income stream:406].

Last amended: 13 April 2011

Income rates and definitions

There are several methods of assessing income for [glossary:service pension:245] and [glossary:income support supplement:118], depending on whether income is earned at a constant rate, irregular rate or as a lump sum.