The levy: What ASIC wants advisers to pay for
Financial advisers who want to know why they are faced with paying an increased ASIC levy to cover 2023-24 should know that it is owed to the establishment of the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR) and costs associated with the adviser exam and single disciplinary body.
They are also carrying the cost of ASIC overseeing the performance of choice superannuation products.
At the same time publishing its levy estimates, ASIC has actually itemised what, precisely, it is billing to financial adviser who provide personal advice to retail clients.
That is the CSLR, the choice superannuation products exercise, adviser registration, SMSF establishment advice compliance, the financial adviser exam and the single disciplinary body.
They will, at the same time, share with the other financial advice sub-sectors the cost of ASIC’s cyber operational resilience exercise, breach reporting, use of artificial intelligence, dispute resolution, the non-lodgement of financial reports, unlicensed financial advice and cold-calling on superannuation switching.
This, of course, raises questions about why financial advisers alone are being hit with the costs of ASIC overseeing the choice superannuation exercise when, arguably, superannuation funds are also central to the discussion.
It also raises the question of whether advisers should alone be hit with the cost of SMSF establishment advice compliance in circumstances where accountants are just as influential in the arena as advisers.
However, on the upside, the cost of ASIC dealing with unlicensed financial advice is being shared across all sub-sectors as is the cost associated with enforcement taken by ASIC against cold-calling superannuation switching models.
According to ASIC, its cost to regulate the financial advice sub-sector in 2022-23 was $47.6 million and the estimated cost of regulating the sector will be $48.4 million for 2023-24.
Why the hell are MIS / Superannuation products not paying for Choice products exercise ?
Yet again products like Dodgy Dixon’s MIS cost Advisers dearly.
Advisers now pay ASIC to research them
Advisers pay ASIC to do nothing when warned of their failure
Advisers pay ASIC to set up CSLR for when ASIC fails to do its job
Then Advisers pay CSLR for MIS & ASIC uselessness.
Time for Real Advisers to tell Govt, ASIC, CSLR & Canberra to get stuffed.
Advisers to rebel Govt
Way beyond enough crap from Canberra
All ASIC does is take, take, take.
and now we have to fund a CSLR fund which pays out people who use non-licensed advisers – WTF?
Absolutely ridiculous what we are being charged for.Firstly the large scale Super Finds have been once again shielded from costs at the expense of advisers that have little to do with many of these areas(I.e. non-lodgement of financial reports, unlicensed financial advice, cold calling from super funds, SMSF establishment advice). We all know that Accountants are mainly responsible for SMSF establishment where majority of clients do not engage a Financial Adviser and the unlicensed accountants are just ticking a box.ASIC know this, but want to scapegoat and implicate advisers into this issue.
Obviously it’s easy to pick on advisers whose representative bodies don’t have the clout or government support of accounting bodies and the large Industry Super Funds. So let’s just charge the little guy out of existence, much like our government do when it comes to small business in this country.
If ASIC promoted the value of professional financial advice, collaborated with financial advisers to remove red tape and make it easier for us to operate, helped facilitate simple advice for lower income aussies who desparately need advice, listened to complaints and put a strong emphasis on targeting areas where the most damage is done (ie. unlicensed operators, fraudsters, smsf accountants, wholesale/general advice operators etc.) then I wouldn’t mind paying the ASIC fee/levy. Unfortunately ASIC do little to none of those things. In fact, for the most part, they do the exact opposite.
Absolutely spot on. The whole rationale around “industry funding” of regulators is that the industry ultimately benefits from that regulation, so they should be the ones to pay for it. I too would be happy to pay for it if I benefited from it. But when you have a regulator that persecutes and vilifies honest, licensed, professionals, and turns a blind eye to shonky unlicensed competitors, ASIC’s “industry funding” is ultimately working against the interests of industry and consumers.
I note as part of the levy we are paying as part of legal costs we are also paying commissions (2.979 Million) not such a dirty word when the regulator is getting it hey…. with all the lawyer now getting % of TPD claims and commissions are accepted in all other industries