What’s a close personal relationship? The ATO has its own idea

Who knew that a normal family relationship between a parent and an adult child was not a “close personal relationship”? The Tax Office knew, that’s who.

In several recent private binding rulings, the ATO refused to accept that a parent was in a close personal relationship with their child for superannuation purposes because even though one had looked after the other in the final stage of the other’s life, they did not meet the test of close personal relationships necessary to put the two of them into the interdependency relationship necessary to be a death benefit dependent.