THE Labor government is progressing a plan to increase tax on superannuation balances over $3 million – but is it fair?
The government’s mounting issue is the massive amount of debt it and previous governments have racked up in past years.
This number is only projected to increase substantially over the next ten budgets.
As such, the current government is looking for painless ways in which to reduce its debt.
This means higher taxes, and fewer concessions.
In my opinion it also means an attack on the poor old retirees who have spent their working lives putting spare dollars into their employer contributed superannuation funds.
What has attracted criticism is that Labor has decided to tax “unrealised gains” in the super funds of retirees.
This attack will become particularly notable on the Mid Coast, which has the oldest population in Australia.
I hope the newly elected member for Lyne has this issue in hand and operates in Parliament to try to protect super fund recipients living in our area.
These so-called gains are simply a result of inflation where shares, properties and farms continue to go up in value.
These gains are now to be taxed after Parliament returns in the next two months and the proposal is tested in Parliament with the support of the Greens.
Whilst the Treasurer says this tax only affects half of one percent of super fund recipients, it could represent the sharp end of the wedge.
Once this concept becomes law then it can be fiddled with in order to extract more income for the Government.
Already the Greens are trying to reduce the $3 million suggested minimum level to $2 million in order to tax many more poor old retirees immediately, plus lots more in the not-too-distant future.
It needs to be remembered that superannuation was delivered by Keating many years ago so that retirees could fund their own futures and not keep putting their hands in the Government’s pockets.
Now they want to move the goal posts long after the ball has been in the air.
By John BLACKBOURN
