Feelings run high on super tax question
Should the Federal Government cut the taxes applying to superannuation? In the strongest response to any question asked in the survey, more than 97 per cent of respondents said that taxes applying to super should be cut.
What is more, respondents indicated that taxation remained an abiding issue of concern, listing it as the third most important issue impacting the industry behind choice and trustee licensing.
A spokesman for independent economic surveying and analysis organisation, Classical Economic Analysis said this represented the third consecutive occasion on which survey respondents had expressed strong concern about the impact on taxation of retirement savings.
“In the three IUS/Super Review surveys we analysed, the level of taxation has emerged as one of the biggest areas of concern among respondents,” he said.
“I think it is significant that there has never been any diminution in that level of concern, with the percentage of respondents expressing concern always being in the high 80s or above,” the spokesman said.
He said the fact that taxation had ranked third behind choice of fund and trustee licensing as a matter for concern by the industry in March 2005 reflected current priority being given to those two issues.
“I suspect that in 12 months’ time, taxation and trustee licensing may still be front rank issues in the minds of industry participants, but that choice of fund will have become less of a concern,” the spokesman said.
He said that the 97.8 per cent response suggesting that the taxes applying to super needed to be cut represented an absolutely unequivocal message which could not be overlooked by either the industry or Government.
The IUS/Super Review survey showed that only 1.9 per cent of respondents regarded taxation as being the issue most impacting the industry at this time, compared to 23 per cent who believed choice of fund was the core issue and 8.1 per cent who were concerned about trustee licensing.
However, many respondents said they regarded taxation as being among their continuing concerns in terms of the issues confronting the superannuation industry.
The findings of the IUS/Super Review survey has been reinforced by other recent surveys suggesting that Australians are reluctant to increase their level of investment in superannuation because of ongoing concerns about its ultimate value to their savings plans.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
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