Free up scoped, scaled and episodic advice says AMP
AMP Limited wants the Government to consider changes which would make it easier for people to access scoped, scaled and episodic advice, arguing that over the last several years the financial advice regulatory burden has increased alongside costs to a point where “advice can only be accessed by the wealthy”.
AMP has made the call in its submission to the Government’s Retirement Income Review at the same time as it works to reshape its advice business.
At the core of the AMP submission is a call for the tax deductibility of the preparation of financial plans and for “changes to the processes that would enable greater access to scoped/scaled/episodic advice”.
In doing so, it said that the tax-deductibility of advice had been proposed multiple times, including within the Ripoll report which underpinning the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) changes but little had been done.
“The extension of tax deductibility of advice would immediately reduce the cost of advice and therefore improve access to advice for individuals approaching and in retirement,” it said.
“The introduction of scoped and scaled advice as part of FoFA was also seen as a way of reducing the cost of advice to the client, including episodic advice, but for a variety of reasons scoped and scaled advice remains expensive, to the detriment of the consumer,” the AMP submission said.
It said that a key question for policy markers related to the cost of advice because it was “now at a point where financial advice is difficult to afford for the many people that most need it”.
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