Hi trendee, I think it's important to consider an SMSF in...

Hi trendee, I think it's important to consider an SMSF in comparison with a 'public offer' alternative, given that SMSF requires additional work and compliance / management risks. It comes down to how much you CAN do as opposed to what you THINK you can do.

A decent wrap-type superfund can provide relatively low administration costs (get cheaper as $ grows) and low compliance risks (economies of scale). You can generally have a pretty broad range of direct shares, TD's, managed funds etc. Essentially you are outsourcing a lot of these tasks and it may / not be directly available to you so you may need to use a middle person to access and trade on, the platform.

Pros are varied per individual but generally compared to above, if you want to: have more control, reduce costs, happy with your own ability, have relatively low cost of your own time, happy to seek advice / outsource if need to, want to buy a property, family estate planning purposes, want to access / use investments not otherwise available, it suits your business accounting affairs to be able to change the contribution levels after 30 June etc. The list goes on.

I probably don't take too much effort but I have had exposure to super rules for a number of years and have a good understanding of how things work. My Accountant does tax return (based on my data/info) & arranges audit and is fairly low cost but I'm happy to pay them if I need their advice.

I hope this helps.