Treasury should reveal super costs
The Department of Treasury should release some of the modelling which clearly underpinned the Government's recent superannuation policy announcements, according to the Australia Institute.
As part of a debate held at the National Press Club today, Australia Institute executive director Dr Richard Denniss called for the release of Treasury modelling "on the relative cost of the age pension and tax concessions for superannuation over the coming decade".
He claimed that until that modelling was released, neither the Government nor the Opposition could have a meaningful debate about the sustainability of their promises.
"Tax concessions for superannuation are the new black hole for the federal Budget. Even the industry admits that we are spending $32 billion on tax concessions for super to save $7 billion on the age pension. The simple mathematics of superannuation appears to have been lost under its legislative complexity," Denniss said.
He said it was time that the projected cost of tax concessions for superannuation and the projected cost of the age pension were both clearly spelt out in the Treasury's Intergenerational Report.
Denniss said the Treasury Secretary, Martin Parkinson, had previously questioned the sustainability of the scheme, so there was no reason not to release the projections "so we can see whether superannuation tax concessions really will pay for themselves or not?"
"If the Government, the Opposition and the superannuation industry really believe that the rising cost of tax concessions for super will be offset by reductions in the cost of the age pension, then they should be willing to agree on a cap for the combined cost of the two," he said.
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