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Balance Retirement & Aged Care Specialists

Making Your Pension Increase

Posted on: March 20th, 2017 by Eric Hiam in Aged Care Financial Planning

If you were one of the unlucky ones, whose pension dropped or stopped as a consequence of the changes to the assets test taper changes that came into effect on the 1st January 2017, & if you happen to be in an Aged Care facility, then there is a strong chance that your cash flow (ie income less your expenditure) is now negative, meaning that your expenditure may be more than your income. Therefore, the negative cash flow is likely to have your bank account balance falling.

As the bank account balance falls, then either your pension entitlement will be increasing each month as your balance falls OR if you are not getting any pension, at some point you may be entitled to some pension in the future. Doing something about it can make your pension entitlement increase.

We suggest that if you have lost the pension, then it may be in your best interest to have an annual review of the pension entitlement to see if you are again entitled to a pension, & if so, apply for the pension again, which you or your family can do, or you could engage us to do the review & apply for the pension on your behalf.  Alternatively, if you retained a pension (but it is not the full pension), then by advising Centrelink (or DVA for that matter) that your bank balance has dropped, your pension entitlement will increase. You could do that once a year, or you could advise Centrelink of the lower balance each month & the pension will increase each month.

At the end of the day, we believe if you have a legal & legitimate entitlement to the pension, then get as much of it as you can.

The maximum pension for a single person is $888.30pf & or for a couple where one or both members of the couple are in residential aged care $888.30pf each ($1,776.60pf combined). If you are a couple who are both living at home, then the maximum pension is $669.60pa each ($1,339.20pf combined)