The SMSF Owners’ Alliance said Mr Bowen has claimed the cost of tax incentives will rise to $50 billion in justifying Labor’s proposed new tax on superannuation earnings.
SMSF Owners’ Alliance executive director Duncan Fairweather said that to get the $50 million figure, Mr Bowen has “added two numbers that Treasury says should not be added together”.
Mr Fairweather said that based on a media release from the shadow minister, he has added together $20 billion in estimated superannuation contributions and $30 billion in estimated concessions on superannuation fund earnings.
“These numbers are from Treasury’s 2014 Taxation Expenditure Statement (TES) included in the Budget papers,” he said.
According to Mr Fairweather, however, it cannot be claimed by adding these two components that the total cost to the budget will be $50 billion, and this is potentially the saving that could be made if superannuation tax concessions are removed.
“They can’t be added because they measure different things. If the tax concessions on contributions are removed or reduced so less money flows into superannuation, then the earnings of superannuation funds will also be lower,” he said.
Treasury warned in the TES that these components should not be added, Mr Fairweather added.
“The shadow treasurer has not heeded this warning and so had double counted in arriving at this $50 billion number,” he said.
“Treasury has also heavily qualified the conclusions that can be drawn from the TES which attempts to measure taxes that are not collected, such as the GST exemptions on food, education and health services, the capital gains tax exemption on people’s homes and tax incentives for retirement savings.”
Well John, it is ‘their money’. Tax avoidance is legal, tax evasion is illegal. So if you are legally minimising the tax you have to pay, that’s being sensible. Labor and the Greens seem to think that they are entitled to all of your income and that we should be thankful for anything that they allow us to keep.
Superannuation is to provide for retirement,NOT as a tax avoidance scheme for the years prior to retirement.
Hockeys latest slogan is “Their Money ” NO Hockey for every dollar that those people avoid has to be compensated either by increased taxs on the underprivileged or reduction of services that a civilized society should provide.
I am a self funded retiree living on my own Super, no Centrelink Pension which it is as it should be.
Of course the shadow treasurer double counted. He is a politician and Chris Bowen was never good at arithmetic. He doesn’t even know the income tax rates. Any figures he puts out should be taken with a grain of salt