Not too late to stop Div 296 advisers told
The Treasurer, Jim Chalmers has firmly reiterated that the Government is not for changing on the $3 million superannuation tax cap legislation, but sectors of the financial adviser community are still strongly lobbying for change.
The financial advisers are telling their peers that it is still not too late to achieve amendments to the legislation which would have the effect of stopping the taxation of unrealised capital gains.
The argument being made to advisers is that the next parliamentary sitting starts next Monday (25 August) and that, if not passed in August/early September, the Government will be facing into a $2.38 billion budget hole.
It said this “opens the door to negotiate design changes” to the legislation.
The document also argues that politicians in marginal seats are able to be persuaded in circumstances where self-managed superannuation funds (SMSF) electoral mapping reveals 29 Australian Labor Party and one Greens seat at risk.
It notes that the Greens want indexation and that advisers should “use innovation/jobs argument to sway them”
“Marginal MPs listen when their jobs are on the line,” the document said.
It also urges advisers to Youse talkback radio and letters to the editor to drive home their argument using lines such as “tax imaginary gains is unAustralian” and “This is an innovation and jobs tax”.
The document also provides a script for conversations with members of parliament such as “I’m a financial services professional representing thousands of Australians. Division 296 will damage innovation, investment, and retirement security. Taxing unrealised gains is unfair, unAustralian, and will cost jobs. Please oppose it or demand design changes”.
“Remember. If August fails, deferral = negotiation window,” it said. “Push for: Removal of unrealised gains tax, indexation of $3m threshold Dual-system for accurate taxable earnings, Fair Defined legacy pension valuations.”
Jim Chalmers is setting up the defeat of Labor at the next election. All the opposition needs to do is campaign with “Abolition of D296” as the key policy, simply on the basis that taxing unrealised capital gains is an irrational and stupid tax policy.
by the time the next election comes around, this will have already passed and nobody will care because they will have shifted the focus to somewhere else
politics is a popularity contest, it is not about policy and logic, labor have just done a much better job than the libs-nats at appealing to the majority, most who don’t understand the ramifications of the policies they are voting for, all they see/hear is the money they might get from handouts and the money the “rich” have to pay
With an unindexed threshold within one to two decades middle income people will be captured and eventually almost everyone. This is, in my view, Labor’s plan. The result will be that super will become limited to employer compulsory contributions only as people will not see any advantage in saving for their own retirement. Paul Keating’s plan was to minimise dependance on Old Age Pensions as the Baby Boomers move into retirement. The current Labor Govt does not understand as they just need more revenue to solve the structural deficit they have created with unnecessary overspending.
Why does the headline say stop Div 296?
Surely the sensible lobbying approach is to amend Div 296, to remove the bad elements of taxing unrealised capital gains and the lack of indexing.
Campaigning to stop Div 296 is playing right into Labor’s hands, as they can easily portray it as opposition to taxing the ultra rich, rather than opposition to the the bad design elements.