ASIC registry fees don’t fund regulation: O’Dwyer
The Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, Kelly O’Dwyer, has clarified that the business registry fees collected by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) do not fund its regulatory work, despite media coverage suggesting otherwise.
“Recent media reports that characterise ASIC's business registry function as fee gouging are misleading and incorrect,” O’Dwyer said.
“The business registries that are maintained by ASIC are Government-owned infrastructure. Individuals and businesses that use the registry infrastructure pay a fee for that use. The fee is payable for access to the register, not for any service provided by ASIC.”
O’Dwyer said that the revenue from the business registries was directed by the Government “to a range of initiatives that benefit all Australians, including education spending and social welfare”.
O’Dwyer also said claims that ASIC’s permanent funding had been cut were incorrect.
“A proportion of ASIC’s funding is project-driven and when these projects come to their natural end, the funding for them also ends,” she said.
“The Government considers the provision of new funding for new projects on a case-by-case basis. Where funds are appropriated by Government to ASIC, they will now, for the first time, be recovered from the relevant industry subsector.”
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