Q&A: What happens if I start a pension and gains push the balance over the transfer balance cap?

Q: If I set up a pension phase with the maximum $1.7 million transfer balance cap, what would happen if one of the investments in that portion made a significant capital gain, pushing the balance over $1.7 million?

A: This is actually one of the most asked questions that we received in about 2017 when the changes were made. There was a bit of confusion around this about if we move an amount of money across from accumulation phase to pension phase, are our earnings opportunities restricted? It needs to be looked at in a different way.

So let’s go back again. We’ve got the accumulation phase here and the retirement phase. Accumulation phase, we’re working, our super balances are growing, earnings are growing, and then at some point in time, we want to access our money by moving it into retirement phase or into a pension phase.