I don't know where this information comes from. I pay $895 per year including tax return, audit and all fees? Esuper is my provider.
I spend about 4 hours a year on administration. Just another example of the crooked people ripping off unsuspecting SMSF retirees.

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Wish I'd read your input 2 hours earlier! Just mailed application for Industrial Fund rolling over my Super around only $200,000. The way it's going, not much left in a few years in eWrap plus Financial Advisor fees. Jean

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Jean, Richard is correct, check out esuperfund if you can, no setup fees usually and low ongoing fees, awesome platform. I use it myself and agree you dont need to pay high fees for a self managed super fund like this article suggests!

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Yes but as I understand E. Super is unfortunately only for NEW funds, you can't rolliover your existing SMSF

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I've read some rubbish but this article takes the cake ... my SMSF has averaged a return of 18.8% per annum over the past eight years net of all expenses. I now exceed the sum mentioned but I didn't eight years ago ... and had I used an industry or retail fund I wouldn't have anything close to what I have. Poor article and does Money no credit.

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I also would disagree with this article. Upon retiring I placed $226K through an adviser with a large superfund. Over 9 years I paid out over $100K in various fees including Adviser costs. As fees were eroding my super savings I closed these accounts and in 2011 rolled over to a SMSF with e-Super which has a good platform, learning modules, and excellent backup for any related advice needed. Costs annually are just under $1000. I regularly research and monitor stock prices and the annual compliance requirements take a few days work so a SMSF is not for everyone. Knowledge of the super requirements is essential. My wife draws the minimum 5% pension and our SMSF continues to grow to the extent that we no longer receive a part Age Pension.

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As someone with their own SMSF and who has taught many to manage their own portfolios, I can say that there is always another side to the story. I think the journalist has done a nice job with one side of the argument given the data they received, however there is not much detail on the research backing up the claims from the productivity commission and this makes it hard to assess the claims.

When deciding to run an SMSF it is a simple equation of fees V returns.

Anyone practicing a buy and hold strategy using just the top ten stocks on the market will achieve returns above what is quoted in the article, in fact they would most likely average over a ten year period returns in excess of 10%. Also as many people commenting here have said, the fees people are currently paying are 20% of what is quoted. I know my fees are a fraction of what is quoted. So if anyone with an SMSF achieved a 10% growth on their portfolio and paid 2% in fees, that is still equal to or better than an industry fund that are quoted to average 7.3%. Based on everyone's comments paying 2% in fees is quite achievable.

What pushes fees up are more transactions as this leads to more accounting and auditing fees, however this is quite manageable with the right approach to investing and the right administration services.

It is important to put things into perspective as the financial industry do not want anyone to manage their own money, and so they are always putting out data or skewing data that supports their view.

That said I do support the fact that not everyone is suited to having an SMSF, and some who do, are achieving very poor returns. That is an education issue as all trustees should not only understand what an SMSF is and the compliance required, but also how to properly invest through one.

What it is definitely not, is an issue with having an SMSF or how much funds should be in the SMSF, as I mentioned it is simply a return V cost scenario. An SMSF with $100K can perform very well, have low fees and out perform an industry fund.

But even more importantly than that it is a matter of freedom of choice. The more competition the finance industry has in this area the better as this keeps fees lower and so all Australians win.

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Any data needs to be asked about its source, selection range and how the statistics were done. My super through an award winning industry super fund never grow like it supposes to and I did an analysis it across the 10 years, its average return is merely close to 5% and last quarter it even shows negative returns. How would a professional fund manager sell shares when the market was very low last year? This means super fund managers can make decisions based on their company benefits rather than the fund owners.

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