Question about Super

Hello,

I currently work for the Queensland Government, which puts in 12.5% or so in my QSuper account and reduces the contribution to 9% or so if my superannuation is managed by any other than QSuper.

Now if i want my existing super money to be transferred to Perpetual Super, can i just open a Perpetual super account and transfer the money ? Or do i need to make employer contributions into Perpetual Super ?

Regards,
Calvinhobbes

 

Hi Calvin,

Depending on what State based award you are covered under, you may not have 'Choice of Fund' like other non-government employees. Although as you mention that your government department employer doesn't pay the additional contributions if you don't pay into QSuper - I will assume you have choice.

If you do have choice of fund, when you joined your employer, they should have given you the standard choice form. You should still be able to go to your payroll office with the standard choice form to nominate Perpetual if you wish. The form can be found here:

Choice of super fund - meeting your obligations

However - you need to have a pretty good reason to change - by your own words:

So - by changing you get 3.5% less super? Is it worth it?

Assuming you have choice of fund, you can direct your existing super to whatever complying super fund you wish.

You may not be able to transfer / rollover your existing QSuper to Perpetual (or any other super fund) while you are still working for that QLD government employer. I have had a lot of QLD government employees (namely nurses and teachers) who wanted to transfer their super however were unable to until they changed jobs. You will need to double check this.

If you do decide to change (I don't understand your motivation personally - but I don't have all the facts so I will reserve judgement) then after directing your ongoing employer contributions to your Perpetual account, you can contact Perpetual and they will help you organise the rollover from QSuper.

Another this to bear in mind with some state based super funds, they are specifically excluded from some aspects of the federal superannuation laws - such as the limits on concessional and non-concessional contributions - which I think basically means that the laws don't apply to politicians - not sure if QSuper counts as one of these funds. This is probably not relevant to your question however.

I hope this is useful for you.

SM

 

Hello SM,

Thanks for the long and detailed reply. Appreciate your help.

To answer your questions,

Yes I do think my organisation allows me to choose the fund, but I think they contribute 9.something super instead of the 12.something if I do not choose QSuper

My plan is to keep using QSuper for the employer contribution so that I do get the additional (12.5%) contributed by Queensland Government. But I want to rollover the already accumulated funds to Colonial First Super as they have a lot of investment options (including some Asian equity options which I am interested in) and if you see the performance of their funds - they are way ahead of QSuper.

I am not sure if QSuper will let me rollover the money to say Colonial First Super, but I will give it a try by calling QSuper this Monday.

I have not decided about the insurance (Death, TPD and Income Protection) which is currently with QSuper. I guess I can let that continue.

CalvinHobbes

 

Hi Calvin

Just wondering whether you got a response from QSuper in regards to transferring out some of your benefits while you are still a QLD Government employee?

My guess is that they wouldn't allow the transfer whilst you are still employed with the QLD Government - but I hope I am wrong!

I did have a client who was a nurse, and she managed to get some of her QSuper benefits rolled over, but by memory she actually had to resign, send in the rollover application, then get re-employed again. There were other reasons behind her resignation and subsequent re-employment - it wasn't just to be able to rollover her super - but she took the opportunity when it presented itself.

SM

 

Hey SM,

I did call up QSuper and as you said I can't transfer my accumulated funds out of QSuper while I am employed with the Queensland Government.

However the good part is that my QSuper account is divided into two accounts. The first part is my previous job with the Queensland Government and the second part is my current job with the Queensland Government (in a different department). And the majority of my money is in the first account as I worked there for considerable time. And I can transfer that out of QSuper ..yay !

So, you do not have to resign to transfer your super...even if you are seconded to a different department, you can transfer out the super money accumulated from your previous department.

Thanks for your help,
Calvin