text: commuting an account based pension - ATO Community
  commuting an account based pension
  on ‎26 May 2018 10:30 PM - last edited on ‎9 April 2019 04:08 PM by JodieH
  On the ATO website Withdrawing-and-paying-tax it says;
  If the rules of your fund allow, you can fully or partially commute your income stream to:
  My question is ......... If I commute my pension to purchase another income stream I beleive that my account based pension is commuted back to my acculation account and new I can commence my new pension .. is this correct ??
  on ‎19 June 2018 03:59 PM
  Yes, but make sure the pro-rata annual minimumpension is paid first, and that more than one pension payment is paid between start date and finish date.
  Also, think hard about why you want to do this - the fund is not limited to a single pension per member.
  ‎19 June 2018 04:28 PM - edited ‎19 June 2018 04:28 PM
  Thanks for your response Bruce,
  just wondering why you say more than one pension payment, when the ATO under minimum pension standards states " you must pay a minimum amount at least annually" which to me means at least once ....
  on ‎19 June 2018 05:29 PM
  SISA requires an "income stream" to be paid => more than a single payment during the lifetime of the pension.
  01/07/2016 start pension
  31/05/2016 pay min pension as a single payment
  30/04/2017 pay min pension as a single payment
  30/06/2017 stop pension. That is an income stream.
  30/06/2016 stop pension. That is not an income stream.
  on ‎19 June 2018 06:57 PM
  thanks for the clarification Bruce
  on ‎20 June 2018 06:03 PM
  If I had a number of pensions say 2 tax free pensions and 2 taxable pensions, instead of having 4 seperate bank accounts and 4 seperate term deposits for these pensions can I have 1 bank account (and 1 term deposit )for both tax free pensions and 1 bank account (and 1 term deposit ) for the taxable pensions from which to invest and make pension payments from. ??
  Taking it one step further if I can have 1 bank account for the tax free pensions, can I then make a single pension payment for the total of the 2 pension payments that are needed to be made, and have appropriate minutes / resolutions detailing what the break down of the payment is. (just to save the hassle of having to make two seperate payments) ??
  on ‎20 June 2018 06:28 PM
  The fund does not need separate bank accounts and investments for each pension, or each member.
  A single payment can be allocated to more than one pension account.
  The financial statement will show the correct allocations of income, expenses, tax, pension payments, etc for each member account.
  The fund auditor will need to be satisfied that the fund's accounting has been done correctly - that is why we use specialised SMSF software.
  ‎20 June 2018 11:01 PM - edited ‎20 June 2018 11:19 PM
  Hi everyone, what Bruce has stated is in line with TD2014/7 in particular examples 1 and 6.
  Pension assets can be pooled together into one bank account and term deposit, even pensions from different members, so long as proper records are maintained.
  I did not know that you could make a single pension payment to a member for more than one pension and then allocate the different pension amounts to the relevant pensions, I guess it comes down to maintaining proper records again.
  on ‎21 June 2018 06:10 PM
  Slightly different question for you here Bruce,
  just picked up that my prior taxagent had reported my smsf member number incorrectly on my members statements when they lodged smsf rtn in prior years, if they update the information in latest smsf return to reflect correct member number will that just bring everything up to date or will I have to lodge amended smsf returns to correct the member number .... ???
  or does any of this really matter ??
  on ‎21 June 2018 06:18 PM
  will I have to lodge amended smsf returns to correct the member number .... ???
  Whenever we move a fund from desktop to cloud software, the member account numbers all change anyway.