Industry unity on planning tax concessions
The financial services industry appears to be grouping behind a push to have tax concessions apply to financial advice, with the InstituteofChartered Accountantsin Australia (ICAA) now backing the prospect.
The ICAA announced this week that it had long held a position in relation to financial advice being made a tax concession for advisers using a fee-for-service model and was pleased with the positions taken by Financial Planning Association and the Industry Super Network.
The ICAA’s manager of financial planning and superannuation, Hugh Elvy, said the application of tax concessions to financial planning had been a feature of the organisation’s recent pre-Budget submissions because the institute believed it would make financial planning advice more affordable and would ultimately lead to wider access by many more Australians.
“The fact that commission-based financial advice attracts the tax advantage while advice given by fee-for-service advisers does not is an obvious problem currently facing the industry,” Elvy said.
“If tax advantages are placed on fee-for-service advice it will go a long way to improving the professionalism of the financial planning industry and the trust between financial advisers and their clients,” he said.
Elvy said it was important for the industry and government to continue to work closely to ensure that the financial advice gained from the fee-for-service remuneration structure could be offset by the client at tax time.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
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