Speaking in Sydney yesterday, Plato managing director Don Hamson referred to Labor’s franking credits proposal as “a pretty divisive policy” that is “effectively increasing taxes on self-funded retirees”.
“My opinion is it’s a pretty poor and biased proposal,” Mr Hamson said.
“If you’re in a self-managed super fund, you wouldn’t get any franking credits. Because that was all pension phase, you don’t get the exemption.
“There would be incentives in that situation for someone to get out of their self-managed super fund and own the assets in their own name or put it into a super fund where they can get the franking credits.”
Mr Hamson comments come as the House of Representative standing committee on economics announced an inquiry into the implications of removing refundable franking credits.
In March, opposition leader Bill Shorten proposed that individuals would no longer be able to claim cash refunds on franking credits that had not been applied to offset tax liabilities.
The abolition of the benefit, according to Mr Shorten, would result in an additional $5.6 billion to the federal budget bottom line.
Even if Labor wins the next election, Mr Hamson said it would be difficult to get the crossbench support required in the Senate required to implement its franking credit proposal.
“As we’ve seen with the company tax policy of the current government, they couldn’t get that through the Senate because it didn’t get approval by all the small groups and the Greens,” he said.
“[Senator] Pauline Hanson is against this policy and the Greens are against this policy, so it’s going to be tough I think to get through the Senate.”
