First Financial Blog

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In mid-March Labor announced a controversial tax policy which would axe tax-credit refunds for retirees in a sweeping crackdown aimed at saving $59 billion over the next decade. In this blog we look at the proposed policy and its potential impact for retirees.

Choosing what to do with your accumulated superannuation is a core part of retirement planning. Getting reliable and trustworthy advice is vital. In this blog we take a look at an investment vehicle which is geared towards giving retirees a flexible, tax-free income stream.

It’s a simple question. But with a market choice of over 5,000 managed investments and around 2,200 stocks, the answer is most definitely not. Which is why working with a financial advisor is the best decision you can make.

Have you received an automated voicemail message claiming to be from Centrelink which asks you to call a Canberra number? If so, do not call the number as this is a scam. We tell you what you need to know about this latest scam and how to avoid it.

If you want to provide an income in retirement that grows each year, lasts your lifetime and then leaves a little something to the kids, you need to be thinking 20 times what you spend in a year.

We’ve been closely watching the US market. And we believe now is the time to reduce our investment exposure. It’s time to switch out of US shares and into more attractively priced markets like Australia and Japan.

We have had a number of clients receive phone calls from people purporting to be from the ATO and Centrelink. They have been asking for personal details such as date of birth, Tax File Numbers, Bank account numbers, etc., in order to either steal their money or steal their identity.

There are now a number of ‘dual’ facilities on the market where they offer you a Retirement Village unit initially, and as your level of care increases you move into Residential Aged Care – all within the one facility…

On Tuesday 9 May, the Federal Government handed down its Budget for the 2017–18 financial year. According to Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison, this year’s Budget is founded on the principles of fairness, security and opportunity.

As discussed in our last article, “Time in the Market” (February 2017), predicting the market is extremely difficult. Whilst we would all like to invest at the bottom of the market and sell at the top, the reality is that this is impossible to do.