In a joint submission to the parliamentary joint committee (PJC), the Industry Superannuation Network (ISN) and the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) recommended that references to ‘advice’ in the legislation be replaced with ‘personal financial product advice’.
Mr Webb said that because superannuation is a concessionally taxed environment (and intra-fund advice is collectively charged under MySuper), “any service provided by superannuation funds that isn’t limited to financial product advice is caught by the TASA regime”.
“Our concern extends to the fact that TASA will also apply to call centre operators, business development officers, member education staff, and so on – essentially, anyone who is customer-facing and not necessarily providing financial product advice,” said Mr Webb.
The submission argued that when consultation on TASA began in 2010, “it was clear that only professionals who provide a personal financial product advice service would be captured by the provisions of [TASA]”.
Over the past two and a half years, announcements from the offices of the assistant treasurer or the minister for superannuation and financial services have reiterated that financial planners are the “key group of affected professionals”, said the submission.
If all providers of intra-fund advice were required to register with the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB), the costs for industry funds would be significant – “and fund members would ultimately foot the bill”, said Mr Webb.
The joint submission also recommended that the make-up of the TPB be adjusted to include representatives of financial practitioner organisations.
The PJC tabled its report into the amendments to TASA yesterday, but Mr Webb said the committee had failed to address his organisation’s main concerns.
“We are disappointed that our concerns regarding the scope of TASA have not been recognised by the PJC, and we will continue to push for changes as outlined in our submission,” said Mr Webber.
