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The Australian
TREASURY
Chris Bowen accuses Malcolm Turnbull of dishonesty over imputations
Bill Shorten, left, and Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen. Picture: AAP
Bill Shorten, left,
Labor treasury spokesman Chris Bowen has accused the Turnbull government of a dishonest scare campaign against Labor’s plan to remove cash refunds on franking credits.
Mr Bowen accused Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of “lying” about the impact of Labor’s dividend imputation policy by basing his figures on taxable income, rather than taking large amounts of tax free superannuation income into account.
Mr Bowen said Treasurer Scott Morrison had tried to play “the same trick” with Labor’s negative gearing policy.
“We will call this out on every single occasion. Mr Turnbull appears to be so out of touch that he thinks that if you have a very large superannuation balance that don’t pay tax and therefore have a low taxable income, that the government’s priority should be to protect those people,” Mr Bowen said.
“We say when it comes to budget repair, difficult decisions are necessary and concessions that were put in place by John Howard and Peter Costello that are no longer affordable, have to be dealt with.
Tax code a mystery to ShortenTax code a mystery to Shorten
“Now the fact of the matter is, taxable income, the data that Mr Turnbull relies on excludes income in the retirement phase. It excludes income from superannuation funds which are tax free or are low taxed.
“The fact of the matter is, that a lot of the income that people receive in retirement is tax free. “By definition people are on low taxable incomes even if they have very significant superannuation balances, very significant indeed.”
Mr Bowen cited analysis from economist Saul Eslake, the Grattan Institute, and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand spokesman Michael Croker which has highlighted that taxable income is not a good indicator of a person’s means or wealth.
“Now of course data released today by Industry Super Funds prepared by a former Treasury costing official shows that 80 per cent of the savings from Labor’s reforms comes from the wealthiest 20 per cent of retirees. 80 per cent of the savings from the wealthiest 20 per cent of retirees. These are the facts,” Mr Bowen said.
“In relation to the money raised from self-managed superannuation, 50 per cent of the money comes from the top 10 per cent of self-managed super funds.
“Of course we’ve seen payouts from the top 1 per cent of self-managed super funds of $83,000 a year in tax refunds from people who haven’t paid tax, which of course is substantially greater than average wages in Australia.
“So I say this to Mr Turnbull: stop your silly scare campaign.”
Asked whether Labor was considering altering the policy to look after low-income people who may be affected, Mr Bowen said Labor stood by its policy.
“It’s a very important policy, it’s a very important reform,” he said.
“Of course under Bill’s leadership we are always looking at ways of helping pensioners. We have opposed the removing of, the lifting of the pension age to 70.
“The government of course threw hundreds of thousands of people off the pension, reduced their pension. We have stood firm with pensioners of course as Bill has said.”
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