How it works
To start your pension, you must first have access to money in a super fund
You start your TasPension by investing money you’ve already got in a super account, either with Tasplan or elsewhere (as long as you are eligible to join Tasplan).
Apart from existing super you can also, in certain circumstances, rollover an employment termination payment into your pension account. You can rollover amounts of any size, as long as your total investment in your TasPension is at least $20,000.
You don’t have to be retired
You don’t have to be retired to start your TasPension, but you do need to qualify for access to the money in your account.
Technically, the money has to be what’s called an ‘unrestricted, non-preserved benefit’. That means you can’t use money that has to be ‘preserved’ until some later date or money you can’t get access to because you haven’t fulfilled some other ‘condition of release’, such as retirement, permanent incapacity or financial hardship. If you don’t know whether a particular amount qualifies as an unrestricted non-preserved benefit, first check with the fund or with the employer making the payment. If you’re still not sure, please give a friendly Tasplan Customer Services Officer a call on 1800 005 166.
The original source of the money you use to purchase your pension can be one or more of the following:
- an existing super account with Tasplan;
- another super fund;
- another retirement income product from a different fund;
- a rollover fund (sometimes called an approved deposit fund);
- a retirement savings account;
- an employment termination payment such as a redundancy payment, ex-gratia termination payment or golden handshake provided such payment was part of an employment agreement in place prior to 10 May 2006 and the payment is made prior to 30 June 2012;
- a payment made as a result of you becoming totally and permanently disabled, if it qualifies as a lump sum payment.
If we receive any payments from an untaxed source, we'll deduct tax from that payment at the rate of 15% and credit the balance to your account.
