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James Coyle
James has over 35 years experience in financial services with particular expertise in two of the key components of retirement finance - Superannuation and the Age Pension. He is passionate about providing the guidance and support that can help older Australians enjoy their best possible retirement. He lives in regional Victoria surrounded by dogs and chooks.
Please explain ‘gifting’.
I paid substantial USA travel & medical expenses for 5+ years for a family member whose ailment was not treatable in Australia. Centrelink wants to treat these substantial costs as ‘gifting’ and because of this won’t grant me a full age pension. This means I won’t get enough pension to cover residential aged care.
Is their interpretation of ‘gifting’ open to challenge or discretionary alteration?
You say to advise Centrelink if a shareholding has risen in value. Is that correct? Yes, I agree if you buy or sell some shares. It is the number of shares bought or sold, and your total individual holding, that is advised to Centrelink. I would think Centrelink obtain the prices of individual shares from the ASX daily or whatever, and value your shareholding. My wife has a small parcel of CBA shares. Their price changes from day to day (even within the day). I think their value has had a significant impact on our combined assets for pension purposes. We are asset tested for pension purposes. Surely, Centrelink does not want me to tell them what this shareholding is worth every day, or when it changes by $2,000.
Hi John. Centrelink requires you to advise them of significant changes in your asset values. They don’t define significant but we would generally recommend you advise them if your assets have increased by more than $3,000. You need to advise them within 14 days so daily fluctuations don’t need to be reported.
Can my employer transfer my long service payment directly into my superannuation fund?
Your primary residence is not totally exempt; renters are allowed an extra $220’000 in
other assets or so I understand it from reading the tables.
After reading the above comments we are curious if we should advise Centre link of the devaluation of our now older car for an adjustment in our pension?
Hi Iris. Yes you should definitely advise Centrelink of any devaluation in your assets. It may not be a big increase in payments but every little bit helps. You can read an article with a good example of this here.
I recently had my pension suspended as I hadn’t understood a term they used in a question (Income Stream). After an exasperating couple of weeks I finally went in, taking all my tax returns, etc. The staff were super helpful and clarified something I didn’t understand. Centrelink does not get access to your tax returns – I thought they would have been updated automatically. I rectified this by sending PDFs of the tax returns to them for update.
Is this correct, that Centrelink does not get access to tax returns unless you supply them? They admitted that most people thought they did.
Hi Tim, that is correct. Centrelink don’t have access to your tax return unless you provide it. Centrelink do get periodic updates (generally 6 monthly) from some financial institutions such as banks and super funds.
this information is good news to us and did not realise all items we should advise centre link about… and will start to review our situation… how ever i would like to point out centre link my Gov problem that i have at the moment … i had to change my phone Mobile number in Feb and then logon to my govt to change the number, how ever at logon it said it would send a security code to my mobile . (the old number , which i did not have ) so locked out of my Govt… i wrote a letter to Canberra Centre link to explain the problem,,,, it now end of April and still situation the Same?.
so i cannot advise or answer any messages within My Govt a/c ?
so i will have to advise My Govt by Mail only in future…
That happened to me. Since then I have always given my Email address as a contact for information, they give that option when setting up.
1. My private health insurance is .29% and rent is 2.39% of my income
2. my other outgoings exceed my pension by $1760
at this rate, I will be destitute in 12 months.
I have recently had a stroke which has left me partially incapacitated.
I am desperate. Is there anything I can do?