Federal Treasurer, Scott Morrison has predicted it will be battlers who will be worst hit by the Australian Labor Party’s proposed changes to dividend imputation, while those who are well off will simply rearrange their affairs to minimise the impact.
Speaking following the release of Treasury costings of the Labor policy, Morrison stressed the degree to which he believed the Federal Opposition had erred on its costings, while also claiming that the current dividend imputation regime actually took pressure off the Age Pension and superannuation.
Discussing those using dividend imputation, the Treasurer said people had purchased the shares, many of them in Australian companies, and then lived off the dividends.
“In the majority of cases, they’re doing it so they don’t have to be on the pension and draw that payment from the taxpayer,” he said. “So, they’re doing the right thing and it’s the ones who actually don’t have big balances in their superannuation or their assets that get hit the most.”
He claimed that what the Treasury costing had showed was that those who were on higher balances and had lots of arrangements would “just change their affairs so they don’t get hit”.
“… but those who don’t have that flexibility, they get it right between the eyes,” Morrison claimed.
