Federal Treasurer, Scott Morrison, has denied the Federal Budget represents a back-track on the superannuation policy direction he outlined to the SMSF Association annual conference in February, particularly with respect to retrospectivity.
Under questioning following his Bloomberg address, Morrison denied there had been any back-tracking.
“I stand by everything I said in that statement for the simple reason that the retirement phase accounts remain tax free and you know that,” he said insisting that “99 per cent of people who actually have balances less than $1.6 million will actually remain absolutely, in exactly the same situation that I have referred to”.
“The changes that we have put forward which I hope, at least from my point of view as Treasurer, I never have to revisit, I certainly have no intention to revisit them, will ensure that those rules are now set for the future,” Morrison said.
The Treasurer also made clear that the Budget changes were, in large measure, redressing policy initiatives put in place by the former Liberal Treasurer, Peter Costello, which had now become inappropriate.
“…Why do we have to change the superannuation system? Because we have an ageing population and we have a system that is frankly overly generous for large balances and the cost of having those large balances and the tax concessions that have existed for those which have only been there since 2007, by the way,” he said.
“They weren’t introduced by Henry Parkes or anyone else like that. It was actually under Peter Costello and John Howard in the final stages of that Government. Those arrangements were brought in when the Budget had a $20 billion surplus and there was $40 billion in the bank.”
Morrison made clear he would not be apologising to those with high account balances who were unhappy with the Budget changes.
“Now, I know there are those who sit with balances more than $1.6 million who are unhappy with that. I know that there are less than 100,000 people in the country who have already put more than half a million in superannuation after their pre-tax contributions. I know there are those on very high incomes who will be paying more on their contributions going into superannuation now than there was before. The alternative of that is for me to tell my kids you are going to have to pay higher taxes to support those concessions and I don’t think that is fair and I am not going to do it.”
