Gillard's super grab will hit harder than you think Accountant Kingsley says the Gillard Government has actually slapped a capital gains tax onto property bought with your super funds: The relevant part of the Government's announcement: Special arrangements will apply for capital gains on assets purchased before 1 July 2014: For assets that were purchased before 5 April 2013, the reform will only apply to capital gains that accrue after 1 July 2024; * For assets that are purchased from 5 April 2013 to 30 June 2014, individuals will have the choice of applying the reform to the entire capital gain, or only that part that accrues after 1 July 2014; and * For assets that are purchased from 1 July 2014, the reform will apply to the entire capital gain. These generous transitional arrangements will ensure that people who have already purchased superannuation assets will have ten years to decide whether they want to restructure their superannuation holdings, before their capital gains start to be affected. Kingsley warns that some people on modest super will, when they finally sell their property, find a big whack taken out: Face value, this means anyone who buys a property in their Self Manage Superannuation Fund today onwards will have to pay 15% on any capital gain that takes them over $100K with the slight grandfathering of the value gained between now and 1/7/14. Given most people buy property in SMSF for the long term, it's highly likely they'll have considerable capital gains and will be caught even if their typical annual pension income is well below $100K. This is probably the next worst thing to taxing people's family homes.