Open slather for four-day financial planners 


The Australian  |
September 04, 2014 12:00AM

Anthony Klan

FINANCIAL planners — who can become fully qualified with as little as four days’ work — will be able to provide “unfettered” taxation advice nationwide under changes proposed by the federal government. 
 
The changes, tabled in parliament last week, will be “dis­astrous” if adopted, according to professional association The Tax Institute, with cowboy planners able to provide “wideranging and unlimited tax advice to any punter”.

The Tax Institute senior tax counsel Robert Jeremenko said a report in The Weekend Australian that demonstrated how a dip­loma of financial planning could be obtained with the equivalent of four days’ work underlined how “devastating” the legislation changes could be to consumers if introduced.

“I am amazed the government has done this on the back of the Future of Financial Advice reforms, the David Murray financial inquiry and the inquiry into ASIC and the CBA financial planners disaster,” Mr Jeremenko said.

“Then the government tables regulations that allow a financial planner ... to provide any taxation advice they like, on the mere condition they sign up as members of one of the financial planning associations.”

“It’s gobsmacking these regulations have been tabled,” he said.

The office of Finance Minister Mathias Cormann declined to comment on the record to a series of questions.

The ALP government in 2010 introduced the national Tax Agent Services Act, which introduced uniform laws, taking over regulation in the sector from the states, Mr Jeremenko said.

He said the tax industry had welcomed the move to streamline the law. It had also backed “bringing in financial planners” to the regulation, on the assumption financial planners would be required to have similar qualifications to tax agents.

Mr Jeremenko, who heads the tax policy and research team at The Tax Institute, said the issue of how to handle financial planners under the act had not been formally addressed until now.

Under the proposals, financial planners could provide any type of tax advice, such as encouraging investment in “tax-effective schemes”, as well as dealing with income tax and fringe benefits taxes, he said.

The only thing financial planners would not be entitled to do, which tax advisers were, was to complete tax returns.

Standards in the financial planning industry vary widely, with the Financial Planning ­Association of Australia considered to have the most stringent standards requiring its members hold at least a “relevant” univer­sity degree, but many other fin­ancial planning associations are far less restrictive.

I expected better of a department under Corman's purview.

The investing public, demonstrably incapable on the whole of managing their own affairs, deserve better than this.
There are enough cowboys in the tax advice industry as it is and they already HAVE qualifications.

The Financial Planning Association have a 10 point summary of requirements they would like to see in the law and it looks pretty good to me.

Of course, nothing will ultimately prevent disaster coming between a fool and his/her money. It never fails to amaze me when we hear how people have signed away their entire retirement savings into some dubious investment. Whatever happened to the adage "don't put your eggs all in one basket"?

Don't they teach these kinds of things any more?

Haven't they learned anything form the Commbank fiasco and all the rest?

Rather than dismantling protections, these fools need to be raising them....

it seems they are intent on creating Australia anew into an economic wasteland for its people.  I told you they were all insane.

And not only are people placed in a position where they could lose their money, if they take tax advice from such 4-day wunderkinds they might be in jeopardy of going to jail!

Its just another case of Abbott repaying his backers