Australian Politics Forum - The growing Centrelink debt scandal

Bam

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #285 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 6:55pm

Now the government is planning to expand Centrelink's reign of terror to aged pensioners and the disabled. Angry

Centrelink's controversial data matching program to target pensioners and disabled, Labor calls for suspension
(Excerpt - click link for full article)
Quote:

Key points:
* Data-matching program set to focus on payments made to pensioners and the disabled
* Commonwealth Ombudsman to hold meetings with welfare groups over program's impacts
* Pensioner groups voice concerns over targeting of the elderly

The Federal Government will expand Centrelink's automatic debt recovery program later this year to focus on aged pensioners and disability support payments.

Parliamentary Budget Office charts reveal the Government plans to use a similar data-matching program to save nearly $1.5 billion over four years.

The debt recovery program — which matches Centrelink and Australian Tax Office records — has issued nearly 170,000 notifications since July with thousands of Australians incorrectly told they owe money.

Labor's spokesperson for social services, Linda Burney, has called on the Government to suspend the program, which is being investigated by the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

"We have just learned this so-called debt system will be applied to people on their age pension so they can collect over $1 billion," she said.

The Ombudsman has scheduled meetings around the country this week to quiz welfare groups about the impacts of the project.

The ABC understands the compliance program for the aged pension and disability support payments will be automated later this year.

But the data-matching program will be based on assets and investments, rather than income data.

Budget papers reveal data matching activities with the Australian Taxation Office will be "expanded" in relation to age pensions and disability payments.

In mid-2016, the Government introduced changes to reduce the amount of human oversight and automate the compliance program, after a pilot program confirmed savings could be made.

The automated program has been criticised by the opposition, social service groups and welfare recipients who claim they being forced to repay debts they do not have.

In some cases, welfare recipients have been forced to repay $40 a fortnight despite still contesting their records with Centrelink.

Others have told the ABC they knew nothing about possible debts until being contacted by debt collectors, with notification letters sent to the wrong addresses.

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Bam Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 21905 Gender:	Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal Reply #286 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 6:56pm Page flip.
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Bam Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 21905 Gender:	Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal Reply #287 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 6:56pm Kick that page.
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Unforgiven

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #288 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:06pm

The example of the 72 year old woman with a house and $ 580,000 cash exemplifies why the system needs to be means tested.

The average life span of Australians is 82, which means this woman will probably not live more than another ten years.

If the house is worth $500,000 she should sell and she has $1 million plus which would giver her $100,000 a year without any investment income and capital growth.

She doesn't need the pension and could rent and live comfortably for the rest of her life by self financing.

In fact she could live extravagantly and piss it up over 5 years and then fall back on the pension.

One of the problems that this exposes is that people who have been saving and accumulating all their lives don't like spending their money.

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Bam

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #289 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:41pm

Unforgiven wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:06pm:

The example of the 72 year old woman with a house and $ 580,000 cash exemplifies why the system needs to be means tested.

The average life span of Australians is 82, which means this woman will probably not live more than another ten years.

If the house is worth $500,000 she should sell and she has $1 million plus which would giver her $100,000 a year without any investment income and capital growth.

She doesn't need the pension and could rent and live comfortably for the rest of her life by self financing.

In fact she could live extravagantly and piss it up over 5 years and then fall back on the pension.

One of the problems that this exposes is that people who have been saving and accumulating all their lives don't like spending their money.

A lot of self funded retirees do very, very well on the tax concessions. Some of them get as much as a quarter of a million dollars a year of income just from franking credits - a refund on tax they don't even pay.

The means test for the pension actually saves less money than is spent on tax concessions for self-funded retirees. Fixing this gross anomaly would go a long way towards repairing the Budget deficit.

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Dnarever

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #290 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:54pm

Unforgiven wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:06pm:

The example of the 72 year old woman with a house and $ 580,000 cash exemplifies why the system needs to be means tested.

The average life span of Australians is 82, which means this woman will probably not live more than another ten years.

If the house is worth $500,000 she should sell and she has $1 million plus which would giver her $100,000 a year without any investment income and capital growth.

She doesn't need the pension and could rent and live comfortably for the rest of her life by self financing.

In fact she could live extravagantly and piss it up over 5 years and then fall back on the pension.

One of the problems that this exposes is that people who have been saving and accumulating all their lives don't like spending their money.

You make a number of assumptions that very likely are not correct.

1 Is that her assets are either cash or cashable and that the value is as estimated. Of her $500K in assets and investment possible only $300K is investment.

2 Her home is valued at over $500K, it is very possibly worth half of that.

3 Which would giver her $100,000 probably not.

4 which would giver her $100,000 a year without any investment income and capital growth
You do know that nobody is getting around 10% these days, even accounting for capital growth and eating into the capital $100K is unrealistic let alone if you really have about $500K to invest.

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Dnarever

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #291 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 8:09pm

Bam wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:41pm:

Unforgiven wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:06pm:

The example of the 72 year old woman with a house and $ 580,000 cash exemplifies why the system needs to be means tested.

The average life span of Australians is 82, which means this woman will probably not live more than another ten years.

If the house is worth $500,000 she should sell and she has $1 million plus which would giver her $100,000 a year without any investment income and capital growth.

She doesn't need the pension and could rent and live comfortably for the rest of her life by self financing.

In fact she could live extravagantly and piss it up over 5 years and then fall back on the pension.

One of the problems that this exposes is that people who have been saving and accumulating all their lives don't like spending their money.

A lot of self funded retirees do very, very well on the tax concessions. Some of them get as much as a quarter of a million dollars a year of income just from franking credits - a refund on tax they don't even pay.

The means test for the pension actually saves less money than is spent on tax concessions for self-funded retirees. Fixing this gross anomaly would go a long way towards repairing the Budget deficit.

income just from franking credits

You have a problem with Franked credits ?

It is not like the tax isn't paid, the company pays the tax for you and it applies to your income.

Bet there is no problem with understanding why you have to add the profit from investment on your tax return. In that context why would you not also declare the tax paid on that income as well. The company when it franks its payment it means that they are paying the tax on your behalf. If it isn't franked than that means that they give you more but you have to pay your own tax.

It is the same principle as PAYE where the employer pays your tax for you.

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Bam

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #292 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 8:38pm

Dnarever wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 8:09pm:

Bam wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:41pm:

Unforgiven wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:06pm:

The example of the 72 year old woman with a house and $ 580,000 cash exemplifies why the system needs to be means tested.

The average life span of Australians is 82, which means this woman will probably not live more than another ten years.

If the house is worth $500,000 she should sell and she has $1 million plus which would giver her $100,000 a year without any investment income and capital growth.

She doesn't need the pension and could rent and live comfortably for the rest of her life by self financing.

In fact she could live extravagantly and piss it up over 5 years and then fall back on the pension.

One of the problems that this exposes is that people who have been saving and accumulating all their lives don't like spending their money.

A lot of self funded retirees do very, very well on the tax concessions. Some of them get as much as a quarter of a million dollars a year of income just from franking credits - a refund on tax they don't even pay.

The means test for the pension actually saves less money than is spent on tax concessions for self-funded retirees. Fixing this gross anomaly would go a long way towards repairing the Budget deficit.

income just from franking credits

You have a problem with Franked credits ?

It is not like the tax isn't paid, the company pays the tax for you and it applies to your income.

Bet there is no problem with understanding why you have to add the profit from investment on your tax return. In that context why would you not also declare the tax paid on that income as well. The company when it franks its payment it means that they are paying the tax on your behalf. If it isn't franked than that means that they give you more but you have to pay your own tax.

It is the same principle as PAYE where the employer pays your tax for you.

Franking credits are just wealthfare.

They made sense when the corporate tax rate was 49%, but now they are a handbrake on lowering the company tax rate. We could fund a lowering of the corporate tax rate to 25% in one go if we scrapped franking to pay for it. In 2006, a report was released that showed that dividend franking is inefficient, and also argued for scrapping them in exchange for cuts to the corporate tax rate.

The worst change was made by the Howard government in about 1999. They made them refundable, so people started getting tax refunds on tax they don't even pay.

The argument for them is to avoid double taxation, but that's a nonsense argument. Workers pay double taxation every time they pay the GST on anything.

Australia is one of only four countries that still has such a scheme without restrictions (the others are New Zealand, Malta and Chile). Countries like Germany and France have abolished it. Australia should do the same, and use the savings to fund a cut to the company tax rate.

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rhino

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #293 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 8:44pm

Unforgiven wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:06pm:

The example of the 72 year old woman with a house and $ 580,000 cash exemplifies why the system needs to be means tested.

The average life span of Australians is 82, which means this woman will probably not live more than another ten years.

If the house is worth $500,000 she should sell and she has $1 million plus which would giver her $100,000 a year without any investment income and capital growth.

She doesn't need the pension and could rent and live comfortably for the rest of her life by self financing.

In fact she could live extravagantly and piss it up over 5 years and then fall back on the pension.

One of the problems that this exposes is that people who have been saving and accumulating all their lives don't like spending their money.

yeah. of course if she doesnt die at the age of 82 then theres a problem isnt here? What do you suggest, making her into soylent green?

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Unforgiven Gold Member Offline I have sinned Posts: 8879 Gender:	Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal Reply #294 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 8:53pm rhino wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 8:44pm: yeah. of course if she doesnt die at the age of 82 then theres a problem isnt here? What do you suggest, making her into soylent green? She can join the Polanimal bitch pack and feed on carrion like Cods does.
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Dnarever

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #295 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 9:03pm

Bam wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 8:38pm:

Dnarever wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 8:09pm:

Bam wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:41pm:

Unforgiven wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:06pm:

The example of the 72 year old woman with a house and $ 580,000 cash exemplifies why the system needs to be means tested.

The average life span of Australians is 82, which means this woman will probably not live more than another ten years.

If the house is worth $500,000 she should sell and she has $1 million plus which would giver her $100,000 a year without any investment income and capital growth.

She doesn't need the pension and could rent and live comfortably for the rest of her life by self financing.

In fact she could live extravagantly and piss it up over 5 years and then fall back on the pension.

One of the problems that this exposes is that people who have been saving and accumulating all their lives don't like spending their money.

A lot of self funded retirees do very, very well on the tax concessions. Some of them get as much as a quarter of a million dollars a year of income just from franking credits - a refund on tax they don't even pay.

The means test for the pension actually saves less money than is spent on tax concessions for self-funded retirees. Fixing this gross anomaly would go a long way towards repairing the Budget deficit.

income just from franking credits

You have a problem with Franked credits ?

It is not like the tax isn't paid, the company pays the tax for you and it applies to your income.

Bet there is no problem with understanding why you have to add the profit from investment on your tax return. In that context why would you not also declare the tax paid on that income as well. The company when it franks its payment it means that they are paying the tax on your behalf. If it isn't franked than that means that they give you more but you have to pay your own tax.

It is the same principle as PAYE where the employer pays your tax for you.

Franking credits are just wealthfare.

They made sense when the corporate tax rate was 49%, but now they are a handbrake on lowering the company tax rate. We could fund a lowering of the corporate tax rate to 25% in one go if we scrapped franking to pay for it. In 2006, a report was released that showed that dividend franking is inefficient, and also argued for scrapping them in exchange for cuts to the corporate tax rate.

The worst change was made by the Howard government in about 1999. They made them refundable, so people started getting tax refunds on tax they don't even pay.

The argument for them is to avoid double taxation, but that's a nonsense argument. Workers pay double taxation every time they pay the GST on anything.

Australia is one of only four countries that still has such a scheme without restrictions (the others are New Zealand, Malta and Chile). Countries like Germany and France have abolished it. Australia should do the same, and use the savings to fund a cut to the company tax rate.

Sorry Bam but what you are saying makes no sense ? Franking benefits investors and Lowering the company tax rate benefits the company ? They are different things.

Quote:

The argument for them is to avoid double taxation, but that's a nonsense argument. Workers pay double taxation every time they pay the GST on anything.

In this case including the GST would make it a triple tax unless of course you buy petrol in which case it would be 4X or 5X taxed.

Quote:

We could fund a lowering of the corporate tax rate to 25% in one go if we scrapped franking to pay for it.

The Company pays the tax, if you remove franking the company would no longer pay the tax up front - the government would get less money ? There are no savings ?

Later in the process when the investor pays their proper tax including the investment income it works out the same.

Removing Franking isn't going to pay for anything.

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Bam

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #296 - Jan 17^th, 2017 at 10:58pm

Dnarever wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 9:03pm:

Sorry Bam but what you are saying makes no sense ? Franking benefits investors and Lowering the company tax rate benefits the company ? They are different things.

Not really, companies pay dividends to investors. Companies that had a lower tax rate would be able to pay larger dividends. These would then be taxed but it would be more efficient.

Quote:

Quote:

We could fund a lowering of the corporate tax rate to 25% in one go if we scrapped franking to pay for it.

The Company pays the tax, if you remove franking the company would no longer pay the tax up front - the government would get less money ? There are no savings ?

With franking, the government gets less money because franking forgoes taxation revenue. The tax is also inefficient because people pay accountants a lot of money to claim this tax concession.

Quote:

Later in the process when the investor pays their proper tax including the investment income it works out the same.

Removing Franking isn't going to pay for anything.

That's just rubbish. If removing franking doesn't pay for anything, that would only be true if the total amount of foregone revenue from the franking concession was zero. It's not. It costs the Budget about $20 billion a year.

From here:
Quote:

Australian Industry Group chief executive officer Innes Willox has thrown forward the idea…

“A key part of our addiction to income tax is that the combination of our relatively high company tax rate and our relatively broad corporate tax base places Australia among the most heavily reliant on company tax across the OECD.”

He suggests an alternative to “using GST revenue to fund a much-needed company tax cut, is financing a substantial cut by removing our imputation system”.

“This alternative now warrants more serious attention,” he says.

...the move, worth about $19 billion a year, could fund a cut to the company tax rate from 30 per cent to 20 per cent...

So you see, it's not just me saying that abolishing imputation can be used to fund a cut to the company tax rate.

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Valkie

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #297 - Jan 18^th, 2017 at 6:20am

Unforgiven wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:06pm:

The example of the 72 year old woman with a house and $ 580,000 cash exemplifies why the system needs to be means tested.

The average life span of Australians is 82, which means this woman will probably not live more than another ten years.

If the house is worth $500,000 she should sell and she has $1 million plus which would giver her $100,000 a year without any investment income and capital growth.

She doesn't need the pension and could rent and live comfortably for the rest of her life by self financing.

In fact she could live extravagantly and piss it up over 5 years and then fall back on the pension.

One of the problems that this exposes is that people who have been saving and accumulating all their lives don't like spending their money.

So.....because one does not advance themselves and decides to either work for a shite wage or has not the skills to be more than a burger flipper, those that have the drive to advance themselves are to be punished.

The burger flipper, through laziness or incompetence never saves any money, pays less or no tax and then retires happily on a TAXPAYER funded pension.

But the engineer who has worked to advance himself, paid shiteloads of tax and amassed a sizable nest egg gets nothing?

Sounds fair.

But there are some holes in this argument.
Firstly, the family home was probably purchased 30 plus years ago.
With interest it has cost three, four maybe five times what it was purchased for.
The person has lived in it all their lives, know the area and are comfortable living there.

In the case of my Auntie 45 years.
Her husband has dementia, they are close to doctors and the shopping center and have friends and family close to them.
To move would be a death sentence, the husband would get lost or be in totally unfamiliar territory.
She would loose the help her family and friends give (so would have to be supported by paid help)
She would loose her pension and be expected to live on her savings, which after selling her house and combining everything would amount to less than the pension when stretched out over 20 years.

This whole exercise is a penny pinching, immoral, dirty, nasty trick propagated by a lazy incompetent greedy government.

If all politicians, public servants and wealthy hangers on were to have to pass the same asset test as normal Australians, there would be squillions of dollars so that every person in Australia could get a pension.

But they will not let go of their multi-million dollar perks, pensions, free flights and such.
Much better to attack the already impoverished pensioners.

These scum deserve nothing, what have they ever done that warrants such excess? ever?

I will have few assets when I retire.
I have 10 years to divest myself of any savings, shares and investments.
I would rather put the money in a tin can than have Govco assess it and stop my pension.
After all, to get the amount in that I can get off the pension in interest, Id need to have much more than I currently have without gradually diminishing my financial base.

Why should I pay for loosers?
Why should I fund bludgers?
Why should I have to pay tax all my life and get nothing back, zero, nada?

I have paid more tax than many of these dickheads have ever earned, I deserve, NO demand a fair share back.

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aquascoot

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Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal
Reply #298 - Jan 18^th, 2017 at 6:59am

Valkie wrote on Jan 18^th, 2017 at 6:20am:

Unforgiven wrote on Jan 17^th, 2017 at 7:06pm:

The example of the 72 year old woman with a house and $ 580,000 cash exemplifies why the system needs to be means tested.

The average life span of Australians is 82, which means this woman will probably not live more than another ten years.

If the house is worth $500,000 she should sell and she has $1 million plus which would giver her $100,000 a year without any investment income and capital growth.

She doesn't need the pension and could rent and live comfortably for the rest of her life by self financing.

In fact she could live extravagantly and piss it up over 5 years and then fall back on the pension.

One of the problems that this exposes is that people who have been saving and accumulating all their lives don't like spending their money.

So.....because one does not advance themselves and decides to either work for a shite wage or has not the skills to be more than a burger flipper, those that have the drive to advance themselves are to be punished.

The burger flipper, through laziness or incompetence never saves any money, pays less or no tax and then retires happily on a TAXPAYER funded pension.

But the engineer who has worked to advance himself, paid shiteloads of tax and amassed a sizable nest egg gets nothing?

Sounds fair.

But there are some holes in this argument.
Firstly, the family home was probably purchased 30 plus years ago.
With interest it has cost three, four maybe five times what it was purchased for.
The person has lived in it all their lives, know the area and are comfortable living there.

In the case of my Auntie 45 years.
Her husband has dementia, they are close to doctors and the shopping center and have friends and family close to them.
To move would be a death sentence, the husband would get lost or be in totally unfamiliar territory.
She would loose the help her family and friends give (so would have to be supported by paid help)
She would loose her pension and be expected to live on her savings, which after selling her house and combining everything would amount to less than the pension when stretched out over 20 years.

This whole exercise is a penny pinching, immoral, dirty, nasty trick propagated by a lazy incompetent greedy government.

If all politicians, public servants and wealthy hangers on were to have to pass the same asset test as normal Australians, there would be squillions of dollars so that every person in Australia could get a pension.

But they will not let go of their multi-million dollar perks, pensions, free flights and such.
Much better to attack the already impoverished pensioners.

These scum deserve nothing, what have they ever done that warrants such excess? ever?

I will have few assets when I retire.
I have 10 years to divest myself of any savings, shares and investments.
I would rather put the money in a tin can than have Govco assess it and stop my pension.
After all, to get the amount in that I can get off the pension in interest, Id need to have much more than I currently have without gradually diminishing my financial base.

Why should I pay for loosers?
Why should I fund bludgers?
Why should I have to pay tax all my life and get nothing back, zero, nada?

I have paid more tax than many of these dickheads have ever earned, I deserve, NO demand a fair share back.

Its a good question.

My feeling on this is that you have to create a "win" in your thought patterns as this is a fact of modern society that you cant change.

I think the way to do this is to realise that the bludger , who probably thinks in his mind "i am winning, i get this free money and those losers have to work" is , in fact, losing.
he is addicted to laziness and to taking.
he will have these behaviours in his intimate relationships, with his kids....one only needs to look at the crazy dysfunction in the relationships in welfare communities, the domestic violence and child abuse to see this is true.
The person who 'takes" is going down.

You, on the other hand, can just see this as another obstacle to overcome. you can pay your tax , like a man,
You can see it as a contribution that you make because you live in abundance. the superior man is a source of pure energy , giving and contribution.
he does not take, he is never needy.
You can train the thought loops in your brain to think this way.
Now you will be a contributor and source of pure energy for your partner, your kids, your employees...you will be much loved and this love will fuel an upward spiral. the more we give the more we recieve.

Dont be jealous of the bludger on welfare. His life is becoming a living hell and he probably needs booze or drugs or angry self pitying talk just to cope with the day.

you are heading for the top of the mountain.
Push on, see it as a lesson in perseverence.
No matter how much tax bills they throw at you, you just power thru and make it to the top of the mountain.
the view from centrelink purgatory(at the bottom of the mountain) is never as sweet as those stuck in "taking mentality' think it is going to be. each welfare cheque they take is another nail in their coffin

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« Last Edit: Jan 18^th, 2017 at 7:05am by aquascoot »

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Grendel Gold Member Offline OzPolitic Posts: 28080 Gender:	Re: The growing Centrelink debt scandal Reply #299 - Jan 18^th, 2017 at 10:13am Scoot.... face it YOU and your ilk are clueless on this topic.
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