Many people wonder what is such a great deal about SMSFs that every second person in Australia has lately been talking about it. What advantages do they offer over retail or industry superannuation funds?

Here are 5 reasons why you should consider setting up a Self-Managed Super Fund right away:

1. One solution to collective family needs
SMSFs give you an option to make collective investment decisions with a limit of up to 4 fund members. This allows a family of four to put the family wealth into good investment for many benefits in the future.

2. Estate planing
SMSFs are a good option to blend estate planning as it comes with very prescriptive death benefit nominations. For instance, arranging for a non-commutable income stream to a child until he attains a specific age or transferring business to a child working in family business. These can be opted with absolute certainty with respect to their prevalence.

3. Control
If you want to take complete control of your retirement rather than relying on government pension options, it is always a better option to opt SMSFs.

4. Flexibility
SMSFs allow greater flexibility pertaining to when you want to start drawing benefits from your fund, and in what form.

5. Application in profitable ventures
A great benefit of superannuation money is that the fund owner can use it to buy a property and lease back in his own business through tax deductible rental payments.

One more reason, that has deliberately been left out, is that SMSFs are cheaper than most superannuation funds but that among above factors should not be a driver to push a case for Self-managed super funds.