Showing posts with label rorts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rorts. Show all posts
Friday 12 April 2019
Morrison’s plan to use whatever is left in Coalition MPs and Senators electoral communications parliamentary allowance to fund his national election campaign has been scuttled
REGULATIONS AND
DETERMINATIONS Parliamentary Business Resources Amendment (2019 Measures No. 1)
Regulations 2019 Disallowance Senator FARRELL (South Australia—Deputy Leader of
the Opposition in the Senate) (21:29): I move: That item 4 of the Parliamentary
Business Resources Amendment (2019 Measures No. 1) Regulations 2019, made under
the Parliamentary Business Resources Act 2017, be disallowed [F2019L00177]. The
PRESIDENT: The question is that business of the Senate notice of motion No. 2,
standing in the name of Senator Farrell, relating to the disallowance of item 4
of the Parliamentary Business Resources Amendment (2019 Measures No. 1)
Regulations 2019, be agreed to. The Senate divided. [21:34] (The
President—Senator Ryan)
Ayes
......................34 Noes ......................26 Majority.................8
The New Daily, 4 April 2019:
The Morrison government
has lost a bid to allow MPs to use taxpayer-funded electoral allowances to pay
for TV and radio advertisements during the looming federal election campaign.
Late on Wednesday night
– in one of this parliament’s last votes before the election is called – the
Senate dumped a government regulation allowing $22 million of public
money to
be used for political ads in the lead up to May’s federal poll.
MPs have a budget of
about $137,000 for electorate communications, while senators have up to
$109,000.
Under existing rules,
they cannot use office expenses money to pay for content on television or
radio. The government’s changes would have allowed them to use printing
entitlements to buy TV and radio ads for the first time.
The Coalition had argued
lifting the ban on TV and radio promotions would have put Australian media on a
level playing field by ensuring all communities had the same access to
information from their federal MP.
But Labor frontbencher
Don Farrell, who moved the disallowance motion in the Senate, accused Prime
Minister Scott Morrison of wasting taxpayers’ money in a bid to save his job.
“Publicly funded office
budgets are for members and senators to communicate with their constituents –
not for spamming voters with hollow election slogans from the ad man, Scott
Morrison,” he said.
With the support of the
Greens and a handful of crossbench senators, Labor won the disallowance vote....
The heroes of
the hour who saved us all from what was clearly an attempt to create a lasting
rort at taxpayer’s expense were:
Bilyk,
CL. Carr, KJ. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. Di Natale, R. Dodson, P. Farrell, D.
Faruqi, M. Gallacher, AM. Griff, S. Hanson-Young, SC. Hinch, D. Ketter, CR. (teller) Kitching, K. Lines, S. Marshall, GM.
McAllister, J. McCarthy, M. McKim, NJ. O'Neill, DM. Patrick, RL. Polley, H.
Pratt, LC. Rice, J. Siewert, R. Smith, DPB. Steele-John, J. Sterle, G. Storer,
TR. Urquhart, AE. Waters, LJ. Watt, M. Whish-Wilson, PS. Wong, P.
Well
done one and all!
Wednesday 13 February 2019
Australian Tax Office Excess Franking Credits: “When people next receive their dividend refund cheque from the government, remember the government has had to borrow that money”
The Australian Government's public debt stood at an estimated $541.73 billion and growing on 8 February 2019.
On 8 February
2019 in Sydney economist Stephen
Koukoulas made a short three minute statement before the House of
Representatives Economics Committee ‘inquiry’ into the Labor Federal Opposition’s
policy to eliminate excess franking credits.
Excess franking credits are refundable to a shareholder who receives a dividend but has no tax liability to use those franking credits against.
It is free money - money for jam - granted to shareholders for the last eighteen years under a Liberal-Nationals federal government tax policy.
By 30 June 2015 these excess franking credit refunds were costing the federal government an est. $2.54 billion annually and, are currently estimated to be costing the Australian Government well in excess of $5.9 billion each year.
Below are the
notes Koukoulas used for that oral Statement
which boiled down to two issues, the cost to the budget and how the policy is
distorting investment decisions from investors and lazy financial planners.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tax policy is always
riddled with trade offs.
No government wants to tax anyone more than it needs to, nor should it impose a tax regime that is unfair if it means cuts to services, a heavy tax impost on others in the community or adds unnecessarily to the budget deficit and government debt.
Labor’s policy on refundable franking credits will impact the budget bottom line by more than $5 billion a year.
Without the change, this $5 billion, or $100 million a week, means less money is available for the government to provide health care, roads, education, disability assistance and defence.
It is disconcerting that every dollar of refundable franking credits is currently borrowed by the government.
When people next receive their dividend refund cheque from the government, remember the government has had to borrow that money:
… every cent of it.
… this adds to government debt that will have to be repaid one day in the future by our children and our grandchildren.
I think this is unfair.
The policy also distorts the way we Australians invest our savings.
Many investors put money into companies that pay high, fully franked dividends regardless of the underlying strength or potential of that business.
Look at Telstra. The banks.
It is blind, uneducated and lazy investing recommended by lazy financial planners.
It is only the dividend, not the underlying strength of the business, that guides the investment decision.
This is one reason why the Australian stock market is still 15 per cent below the 2007 peak, while the US, German and Canadian stock markets are substantially higher.
None of these countries have refundable franking credits.
Investors in those countries provide finance to dynamic growth companies and strong businesses.
In Australia, such companies are often shunned by investors because they pay no or low dividends.
Investors instead place their money with what are average firms that structure their businesses according to tax policy distortions.
Imagine if the ASX was at 10,000 points, not the 6,000 point level prevailing today?
I suspect the concerns about dividend refunds would be trivial.
The Australian tax distortions mean that local entrepreneurial firms have less access to local capital.
The money is instead tied up in dinosaur companies paying high dividends.
It is one reason why so many of the 21st century technology and start up firms in Australia head overseas to pursue their business models.
No government wants to tax anyone more than it needs to, nor should it impose a tax regime that is unfair if it means cuts to services, a heavy tax impost on others in the community or adds unnecessarily to the budget deficit and government debt.
Labor’s policy on refundable franking credits will impact the budget bottom line by more than $5 billion a year.
Without the change, this $5 billion, or $100 million a week, means less money is available for the government to provide health care, roads, education, disability assistance and defence.
It is disconcerting that every dollar of refundable franking credits is currently borrowed by the government.
When people next receive their dividend refund cheque from the government, remember the government has had to borrow that money:
… every cent of it.
… this adds to government debt that will have to be repaid one day in the future by our children and our grandchildren.
I think this is unfair.
The policy also distorts the way we Australians invest our savings.
Many investors put money into companies that pay high, fully franked dividends regardless of the underlying strength or potential of that business.
Look at Telstra. The banks.
It is blind, uneducated and lazy investing recommended by lazy financial planners.
It is only the dividend, not the underlying strength of the business, that guides the investment decision.
This is one reason why the Australian stock market is still 15 per cent below the 2007 peak, while the US, German and Canadian stock markets are substantially higher.
None of these countries have refundable franking credits.
Investors in those countries provide finance to dynamic growth companies and strong businesses.
In Australia, such companies are often shunned by investors because they pay no or low dividends.
Investors instead place their money with what are average firms that structure their businesses according to tax policy distortions.
Imagine if the ASX was at 10,000 points, not the 6,000 point level prevailing today?
I suspect the concerns about dividend refunds would be trivial.
The Australian tax distortions mean that local entrepreneurial firms have less access to local capital.
The money is instead tied up in dinosaur companies paying high dividends.
It is one reason why so many of the 21st century technology and start up firms in Australia head overseas to pursue their business models.
This costs the
Australian economy growth and jobs.
With the policy change on refundable franking credits, there will be a greater incentive to invest in companies and other assets for reasons of growth and entrepreneurial flair…
… which will be a positive for the economy and jobs …
… and it will be good for the long term future of Australia.
Thank you
With the policy change on refundable franking credits, there will be a greater incentive to invest in companies and other assets for reasons of growth and entrepreneurial flair…
… which will be a positive for the economy and jobs …
… and it will be good for the long term future of Australia.
Thank you
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thursday 3 January 2019
Murray-Darling Basin Plan: a $13 billion fraud on the environment
Some home truth about the current Murray-Darling Basin Plan to remember as we enter into the morass of competeing claims in NSW State and Australian Federal election campaigns in the first half of this year....
IN THE MATTER OF THE
MURRAY-DARLING BASIN ROYAL COMMISSION, Adelaide South Australia, 23 October 2018:
MR R. BEASLEY SC, Senior
Counsel Assisting:
….Commissioner, the
Water Act and the Basin Plan have been hailed as ground-breaking reform. They
are. What this Commission has learnt, however, from the evidence it has
gathered, and from the witnesses that have informed us, is that it’s one thing
to enact transformative legislation like the Water Act and the Basin Plan, it’s
quite another thing to faithfully implement it. Sadly, the implementation of
the Basin Plan at crucial times has been characterised by a lack of attention
to the requirements of the Water Act and a near total lack of transparency in
an important sense.
Those matters have had,
and continue to have, a negative impact on the environment and probably the
economies of all the Basin Plan states but the state that will suffer the most
is the state at the end of the system, South Australia. The Water Act was a
giant national compromise. At its heart was a recognition that all of the Basin
states – Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia – were taking too much
water from the system and had been for a long time. That, as a matter of
statutory fact in the Water Act, and as a matter of reality, has led to serious
degradation of the environment of the Basin. The Millennium Drought of 2000s
underscored the fact that, if nothing was done, over-allocation of the water
entitlements in the Basin would inevitably and quickly lead to irreversible
damage to the Basin environment.
The Water Act was a
response to that. It was the statutory means by which the process of
restoration and protection of environmental assets would begin. I say the Water
Act was a compromise because the Act contemplates that water will be taken from
our rivers and used consumptively for irrigation, the growing of crops and
permanent plants. Of course, also for human water needs. But it sets a limit.
That limit is that no more water can be taken beyond the point where key areas
of the environment and its ecosystems might be damaged. In an environment
that’s already degraded, that means the Water Act requires the environment to
have both enough water to restore degraded wetlands and the like and also, of
course, to maintain them.
That’s not just the
right thing to do. It’s what Australia’s international obligations require.
That task, setting a limit on the extraction of water, is to be based on the
best available science. Not guided by the best science, not informed by the
best science but based on the best available science. It also has to be
achieved by taking into account the well-known principles of ecologically
sustainable development. What the Commission has learnt from the evidence presented
to it is that the implementation of the Basin Plan, at crucial stages, has not
been based on the best available science. Further, ecologically sustainable
development has either been ignored or, in some cases, in relation to supply
measures, actually inverted.
I want to read to you a peer review of the
Guide to the Basin Plan from some international scientists in 2010 because it
demonstrates that they were well aware, even back then, of what was actually
going on in the early stages of drafting the Basin Plan. This is a peer review
report by Professor Gene Likens of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Mr
Per Bertilsson of the Stockholm International Water Institute, Professor Asit
Biswas from the Third World Centre for Water Management and Professor John
Briscoe, Gordon McKay Professor from Harvard University. What they said was
this, in reviewing the Basin Plan, at page 34 of what became exhibit RCE38:
It is a fundamental tenet of good
governance that scientists produce facts and the government decides on values
and makes choices. We are concerned that scientists in the Murray-Darling Basin
Authority, who are working to develop the facts, may feel they are expected to
trim those so that the sustainable diversion limit will be one that is politically
acceptable. We strongly believe that this is not only inconsistent with the
basic tenets of good governance but that it is not consistent with the letter
of the Water Act. We equally strongly believe that government needs to make the
necessary trade-offs and value judgments and need to be explicit about these,
assume responsibility and make the rationale behind these judgments transparent
to the public.
If all the MDBA had been
done in the past eight years since that review was written is “trim the facts”,
that would be bad enough. But it’s worse than that. The implementation of the
Basin Plan has been marred by maladministration. By that I mean mismanagement
by those in charge of the task in the Basin Authority, its executives and its
board, and the consequent mismanagement of huge amounts of public funds. The
responsibility for that maladministration and mismanagement falls on both past
and current executives of the MDBA and its board. Again, while the whole of the
Basin environment has and will continue to suffer as a result of this, the
state whose environment will suffer the most is South Australia.
The principal task of
those implementing the Plan is to set the Basin-wide sustainable diversion
limit. How much water can be taken from the rivers before the environment
suffers? You’ve heard evidence that has been unchallenged that this task was
infected by deception, secrecy and is the political fix. The modelling it has
been said to have been based on is still not available seven years later. The
recent adjustment of the sustainable diversion limit by raising it by 605
gigalitres, on the evidence you’ve heard, is best described as a fraud on the
environment. That’s a phrase I used in opening. It was justified then. It’s
re-enforced by the evidence you’ve heard subsequently. The so-called 450
gigalitres of upwater, the water that the then South Australian Government
fought for, for this State’s environment, is highly unlikely to ever eventuate.
The constraints to the system are just one major problem in the delivery of
that water.
Like all aspects of the
implementation of the Basin Plan, efficiency measures or infrastructure
projects that form the basis of how the 450 gigalitres of water is to be attained,
and which are funded by public money, lack any reasonable form of transparency
and, as the Productivity Commission recently, and witnesses to this Commission,
have noted, are hugely more expensive and less reliable than purchasing water
entitlements. I will discuss this in detail but I will give you one quote from
an expert who can talk with real authority about the extra 450 gigalitres
proposed for South Australia under the Basin Plan. That’s the former
Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, David Papps. In his evidence to you
said:
I would
bet my house that South Australia is not getting that water.
Mr Papps’ prediction
seems safe when one considers the proposed amendments to the Basin Plan by the
governments of NSW and Victoria concerning the 450 gigalitres that I will come
to shortly. Everything that I have just said to you is based on the views of
eminent scientists and other people who have given evidence and lodged
submissions. However, neither the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture and
Water, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, or any Commonwealth government
agency has provided any answer to anything I have just said or to the evidence
before the Commission that I will refer to shortly. They have no answer. The
submissions provided to you very recently by the Murray-Darling Basin
Authority, and the DAWR, Department of Agriculture and Water Resources,
demonstrate, as did their unwillingness to give evidence, culminating in
proceedings to the High Court, that they do not have any answer.
The MDBA, you will
recall, were even too busy to meet you. The States also have no answer, as
demonstrated in their somewhat thin submissions to you, with the exception of
the South Australian Government. When I say the MDBA has no answer to the
expert evidence given in this Commission, I should emphasise also that it
clearly has no answer to the maladministration and unlawfulness of its
implementation of the Basin Plan. It is nevertheless a great pity that relevant
persons from the Basin Authority, and other Commonwealth agencies, were not
required to give answers to you under oath concerning the scientific evidence
the Commission gathered.
The opportunity may have
been there had the High Court decided those proceedings in your favour. I’m not
going to speculate on what the High Court would have done but, regrettably, the
South Australian Government chose not to extend your Commission in order to
provide you with the opportunity that may have been available to you to
question those relevant people. You made it clear to the South Australian
Government that was your strong preference. You advised them that the
Commission had potential witnesses that wanted to give important evidence,
evidence relevant to the South Australian environment, but only if they were
compelled by summons. In other words, they were too scared to talk about the
implementation of the Basin Plan without the force of a summons. Why the
Commission was not extended to explore these crucial matters is something upon
which you can draw inferences as you see fit. I will only say that it’s a great
opportunity lost……
Sunday 30 September 2018
A tale of NSW Liberal politicians & a printing company with no commercial printer
BuzzFeed, 25 September 2018:
In a perfectly manicured
cul-de-sac in Bella Vista, a suburb in the Hills district northwest of Sydney’s
CBD, a business called Zion Graphics operates out of a mansion.
Run by Rudy Limantono,
the president of the Bella Vista Liberal branch and also a party donor, Zion
Graphics is the printer of choice for the local federal member of parliament,
Alex Hawke…..
Hawke, 41, was recently
promoted to the ministry after the latest Liberal leadership spill that saw
Morrison take the top job. Hawke is now the special minister of state,
responsible for integrity and parliamentarians’ spending, and is Morrison’s
representative on the NSW Liberal state executive.
Hawke uses Zion Graphics
to print his newsletters, flyers, community surveys, and more…..
Limantono also would not
disclose the amount of business Hawke has sent him, claiming “commercial in
confidence”. He said that he has been Hawke’s go-to printer “since his
election” but would not specify how many years. Hawke was first elected to
federal parliament in 2007.
Zion Graphics has no
website or Facebook page. The phone number connected to the business is
registered at the Limantonos’ family home.
And BuzzFeed News
understands the company doesn’t actually own a commercial printer…..
Hills Banners (which
recently merged with Bannerworld in Winston Hills) confirmed to BuzzFeed News
that it has been printing material for Zion Graphics for at least the last two
years.
Hills Banners said it
received electronic files (PDFs) from Zion Graphics and would print tens of
thousands of copies. Depending on the size of the order, it would take four to
seven working days to complete the job.
NSW Liberal sources say
that Zion Graphics charges clients a premium rate, then contracts out the
actual printing to Hills Banners, which charges much less for the same service,
leaving Zion Graphics with a tidy profit.
Limantono did not deny
this, but told BuzzFeed News there was no “impropriety”….
BuzzFeed News asked Zion
Graphics how much it would cost to print 30,000 newsletters and received a
quote for $7,150 + GST. Hills Banners said it would charge $4,000 + GST for the
same job.
BuzzFeed, 26 September 2018:
Hawke isn’t the only
Liberal politician that uses Zion Graphics. Limantono refused to reveal who his
clients were, claiming "commercial in confidence".
But BuzzFeed News has
found at least eight other Liberal politicians who have given hundreds of
thousands of dollars of taxpayer funded business to Limantono.
Federal families and
social services minister Paul Fletcher; federal backbencher Julian Leeser; NSW
treasurer Dominic Perrottet; NSW minister for mental health, women and ageing
Tanya Davies; NSW minister for Western Sydney Stuart Ayres; NSW minister for
innovation and better regulation Matt Kean; NSW member for Seven Hills Mark
Taylor; and NSW member for Baulkham Hills David Elliott use Zion Graphics to
print documents including newsletters, flyers and community surveys.
Labels:
Liberal Party of Australia,
rorts
Friday 25 May 2018
Now customers can't even trust their local bank tellers
It seems schoolchildren are considered fair game by the big banks......
Junkee, 19 May 2018:
Oh boy. This is a tough
one. An investigate report by Fairfax Media has found that Commonwealth Bank
employees set up thousands of fraudulent children’s savings accounts in order
to meet internal targets and earn bonuses.
That’s right folks. Your
mates the Dollarmites? They were in it up to their neck.
According to the report
by Fairfax reporter Adele Ferguson, the scam involved employees illegitimately
activating Youthsaver accounts that had been set up by parents
via the Commonwealth Bank’s school banking program (better known at
Dollarmites) but did not contain any actual money. Since the sign-up would not
count towards internal sales targets unless a deposit was made in the
first 30 days, employees would deposit a small amount of money into
the account themselves to ensure that it was counted.
The matter first came to
the attention of senior management at the bank in 2013. An internal
investigation found that at 150 branches, as many as 5347 Youthsaver
accounts contained less than $1 in deposits. According to the Fairfax
report, “managers were asked to look into them to see if they had been
fraudulently set up using illegitimate sources of funds”, but the bank chose
not to broaden the investigation to include the almost 900 other branches
that were in operation at the time.
Ultimately, no disciplinary
action was taken against employees. In an email obtained by Fairfax, one senior
manager said “the issue is widespread, it would seem unfair to name a handful
when more are involved”.
The bank did not inform
any of the customers or schools involved.
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
18 May 2018:
The school banking and
customer referral scandals came to light inside the bank shortly after CBA's
now chief executive, Matt Comyn, was appointed to run the retail operation in
2012….
“While this practice did
not financially harm any of our customers, it was a breach of their trust. For
that I’m deeply sorry. As CBA’s new chief executive, my number one priority is
to expedite changes that will prevent any behaviour that undermines our
customers' trust in us – and to remove any CBA employee who knowingly acts
against our customers’ interests.”
The country’s largest
consumer group, CHOICE, seized on the scandal to renew its calls to ban school
banking schemes.
“It's a pretty basic
expectation that bank staff will handle money honestly. Whether it involves
five cents or $5 million, any mishandling of funds goes to the heart of trust
in the institution,” CHOICE chief executive Alan Kirkland said.
He said if senior staff
knew it was happening on a mass scale and did nothing about it, they were
complicit in that fraud.
“This raises serious questions about the
culture of the entire bank,” he said
While over at the Banking and Finance
Royal Commission………
ABC
News, 21 May
2018:
The banking royal
commission has heard an elderly, seriously ill woman faced homelessness after
her daughter's business failed.
Carolyn Flanagan cannot
read or write due to blindness caused by glaucoma, she has trouble speaking due
to the effects of cancer surgery, suffers memory loss and has osteoporosis,
among other medical problems.
The pensioner sought
help from Legal Aid NSW when Westpac tried to take her home, which was used to
guarantee her daughter's loan. A complaint was taken to the Financial Ombudsman
Service, which found in Westpac's favour.
It was only a last-ditch
effort by Ms Flanagan's Legal Aid lawyers that managed to keep her in her home.
Solicitor Dana Beiglari
told the hearing her manager at the time "contacted another consumer
advocate to see if he had a senior contact at Westpac who we could escalate
this matter to, given our client was facing homelessness in her old age".
Ms Beiglari sent a letter
to Westpac outlining Ms Flanagan's medical circumstances and managed to secure
a "life interest" in the property for her, which means she can remain
in the home until she dies or decides to sell.
Counsel assisting the
inquiry Michael Hodge QC asked Ms Beiglari about the Westpac employee's
response to the case.
"What that employee
of Westpac expressed to you was surprise with the thought that Westpac would be
evicting and it wasn't in line with what Westpac would normally do?" he
asked.
"Yes, that's correct,"
Ms Beiglari answered.
Ms Flanagan maintained a
sense of humour under questioning. After Mr Hodge listed off her litany of
health issues, including depression, she quipped "that'd depress
anybody".
She gave her evidence
through a video link as she was too unwell to travel.
Westpac's lawyers
questioned her recollection of events and the amount of the loan.
Westpac executive
Alastair Welsh followed Ms Flanagan and Ms Beiglari in giving evidence. He said
there was nothing "technically" wrong with Ms Flanagan being allowed
to act as a guarantor.
"My review of the
file shows we followed the process I would want the bank to follow," Mr
Welsh said.
However, he admitted
there were some problems with the bank's handling of the case once the loan
failed.
The inquiry heard it was
Westpac policy to "exercise extreme caution" with parental
guarantees.
Mr Welsh admitted there
were warning signs in Ms Flanagan's case that should have been observed by the
banker.
"She suffers from
quite debilitating health conditions. Would that be a relevant factor?" Mr
Hodge asked.
Mr Welsh agreed and said
there were no comments on Ms Flanagan's file noting her condition.
The bank manager
involved is no longer employed by Westpac.
Labels:
banks and bankers,
children,
rorts,
royal commission
Thursday 22 March 2018
The tweet Malcolm Bligh Turnbull thought it was wise to delete from Twitter
On 22 March 2018 Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull deleted this tweet.
The video this tweet contained survives for a limited time elsewhere.
The reason why this tweet came and went so swiftly? Because many of the people with speaking parts are not low-income aged pensioners who just happen to have shares.
They are former business owners who are now self-funded retirees and, a least one of them structured his superannuation now in the pension phase on the premise that he would be receiving a taxpayer-funded cashback payment for unused franking credits - that is cash handouts for tax he never paid - for forever and a day.
One suspects that Turnbull suddenly realised that the video was not the tearjerker he originally thought it was.
Thursday 15 March 2018
Let's talk about excess franking credits and why they have been money for jam for the last 17 years
This is what
the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) states about imputation:
Dividends paid to
shareholders by Australian resident companies are taxed under a system known as
imputation. This is where the tax the company pays is imputed, or attributed,
to the shareholders. The tax paid by the company is allocated to shareholders
as franking credits attached to the dividends they receive.
If you receive franking
credits on your dividends, you need to let us know your:
* franked amount
* franking credit.
If you are an Australian
resident, we will use this information to:
* reduce your tax
liability from all forms of income (not just dividends) and from your taxable
net capital gain
* refund any excess
franking to you after any of your income tax and Medicare levy liabilities have
been met.
You are eligible for a
refund of excess franking credits if all of the following apply:
* You receive franked
dividends, on or after 1 July 2000, either directly or through a
trust or partnership.
* Your basic tax liability
is less than your franking credits after taking into account any other tax
offsets you are entitled to.
* You meet our
anti-avoidance rules, which are designed to ensure everyone pays their fair
share of tax.
If you have received a
dividend that has Australian franking credits attached from a New Zealand
franking company, you may be eligible to claim the Australian sourced franking
credits.
The policy of
giving cash back for unused franking credits was introduced in 2000 by then
Howard Government treasurer Peter
Costello and for the last 17 years it has been systematically rorted by superannuation
funds, private corporations, trusts and individuals - to the point where Treasury
pays out an est. $6 billion per annum under this scheme.
With one individual whopaid no income tax reportedly received millions claiming cash for unused franking credits and the average unused credits cash back payment for people in the top 1% of self-managed super funds being est. $83,000 a year.
With one individual whopaid no income tax reportedly received millions claiming cash for unused franking credits and the average unused credits cash back payment for people in the top 1% of self-managed super funds being est. $83,000 a year.
In March 2018
Federal Labor announced a policy effective
January 2019 which removes claims for franking credits
- but only in those years that the prospective claimant has no income tax
liability payable.
So ending
taxpayer-subsidised money for jam for around est. 9 per cent of the population who were receiving cash refunds for tax they had never paid .
Turnbull,
Morrison & Co then came out fighting – accusing Opposition Leader Bill Shorten of robbing low income self-funded retirees
and aged pensioners.
At that
point, somewhat predictably, embarrassment for the Turnbull Government began…..
What Treasurer and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison considered low income retirees was elucidated.
Turnbull & Co were accused of telling political lies.
What Treasurer and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison considered low income retirees was elucidated.
The Australian, 14 March 2018:
A retired couple living
in a $2m house, with $3.2m in super, are classified as ‘‘low income’’. They
have no income tax liability. They could also have an investment property and
still wouldn’t have a tax liability because of the bizarre “senior and pensioners’
tax offset”, which lifts their effective tax-free threshold to about $58,000.
Turnbull & Co were accused of telling political lies.
The
Guardian, 14
March 2018:
You won’t have missed
the foghorn blast from the Turnbull government and its media amplifiers that
has accompanied Labor’s latest
bold foray on tax policy.
Scott Morrison has
declared Labor is stealing
tax refunds from pensioners and low-income retirees, and Malcolm
Turnbull says Bill Shorten “is going after the savings of your parents and
their friends and their contemporaries”.
So how do these
terrifying-sounding claims stack up?
Let’s bring in the
respected economist Saul Eslake, who has no political dog in this race. Eslake
is blunt. He says the government’s posturing is “misleading in the same way
that most of what Scott Morrison said
about Labor’s policy on negative gearing was misleading”.
To understand precisely
what is misleading – the first thing to know is when we are talking about
Australian retirees having low incomes, often what that means is people have
low taxable incomes.
Income from
superannuation funds is tax free once people turn 60. Eslake says the decision
to make income from super tax free is “top of my list of the dumbest tax policy
decisions of the last 25 years”.
It means people with
substantial assets, and big super balances – millionaires in fact – are in a
position to report low taxable income, and in fact structure their affairs to
ensure they have low taxable income.
They were also quite rightly accused of knowing that dividend imputation Ă la Costello is an expensive rort.
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
13 March 2018:
Treasury considered
dividend imputation reform in the lead up to Treasurer Scott Morrison's last
budget, creating a dossier entitled "Tax Policy - Dividend
Imputation" more than a year before Labor announced it would target the
tax refunds of more than one million Australians on Tuesday.
The confidential file
itemised in a list required to be disclosed by departments as part of freedom
of information requirements was opened by Treasury in the first-half of last
year.
Fairfax Media
understands Treasury has been examining withholding dividend cheques from
non-taxpaying shareholders ahead of this year's May budget.
Investigating potential
savings needed to fund budget initiatives such as personal income tax cuts is
normal practice in the pre-budget period.
Mr Morrison said on
Tuesday the "government has never entertained" changes to the way it
gives cash back to shareholders in response to a policy he described as a
"cruel blow for retirees and pensioners," but his predecessor
Joe Hockey first asked how dividend imputation could be improved - not replaced
- three
years ago.
A white discussion paper
on tax reform commissioned by Mr Hockey and completed by Treasury in 2015
found "there are some revenue concerns with the refundability of
imputation credits," indicating the department was receiving lower tax
revenues than it expected.
"It provides a
greater incentive for shareholders of closely held companies to delay
distributions until a time when individual owners are subject to a relatively
low tax rate, to receive a refund of tax paid by the company."
The
list published by Treasury shows the department's work on dividend
imputation policy continued after Mr Morrison became Treasurer in 2016…..
Labor, which has not
released Parliamentary Budget Office costings of its policy, said it planned on
cancelling an average cash refund of $5000 on share dividends from 8 per cent
of taxpayers, including 200,000 voters who self-manage their own super funds
and 1 per cent of full pensioners..….
"Rethink: Better tax, better Australia" discussion paper information here and submissions here.
Image found on Twitter
"Rethink: Better tax, better Australia" discussion paper information here and submissions here.
Labels:
rorts,
shares,
taxation,
Turnbull Government
Tuesday 13 March 2018
Only a handful of NSW landowners to face court over Murray-Darling Basin water theft allegations?
ABC News, 8 March 2018:
The NSW Government will
prosecute several people over alleged water theft on the Barwon-Darling, eight
months after Four Corners investigated the issue.
WaterNSW has named the
people it is taking to the Land and Environment Court over alleged breaches of
water management rules.
They are prominent
irrigator Peter Harris and his wife Jane Harris, who own a major cotton farm
near Brewarrina in the state's north-west and were named in the Four
Corners story.
The couple have been
accused of taking water when the flow conditions did not permit it, and
breaching licence and approval conditions.
Three members of another
prominent family are also facing charges: cotton grower Anthony Barlow from
Mungindi near Moree and Frederick and Margaret Barlow.
The Barlows have been
accused of pumping during an embargo and pumping while metering equipment was
not working.
WaterNSW gave false
figures: Ombudsman
WaterNSW announced the
prosecutions an hour before the NSW Ombudsman released a scathing report saying
the agency had given the Government incorrect figures on its enforcement
actions.
The state's ombudsman,
Michael Barnes, found WaterNSW gave incorrect figures when it provided
statistics that showed there had been a significant increase in enforcements
between July 2016 and November 2017.
"The information
provided to us indicated that the updated statistical information from WaterNSW
that we'd published was significantly incorrect," he said.
"There had, in
fact, been no referrals for prosecutions and no penalty infringement notices
issued in the relevant period."
Mr Barnes said he
initiated a separate investigation after his office received complaints about
the figures, and he found WaterNSW had inflated the statistics.
"As part of our
investigation, we confirmed with Revenue NSW that no penalty infringement
notices were issued by WaterNSW in the relevant period," he said.
The ombudsman said he
raised the issue with WaterNSW, which has admitted to the mistake and
apologised.
Mr Barnes also said he
believed the error was unintentional.
The agency's CEO, David
Harris, said staff have now manually reviewed all actions taken.
"Some of the detail
WaterNSW provided was incorrect and, although it was revised, it is not
acceptable and we are acting to ensure it does not happen again," he said……
NSW
Ombudsman, Correcting the record: Investigation
into water compliance and enforcement 2007-17: A special report to Parliament
under sections 26 and 31 of the Ombudsman Act 1974, 8 March 2018, Amended enforcement outcome
statistics:
Tuesday 27 February 2018
The mess that Barnaby left
Environmental Defender’s Office NSW, undated 2017:
EDO NSW, on behalf of
its client the Inland Rivers Network, has commenced civil enforcement
proceedings in the NSW Land and Environment Court in relation to allegations of
unlawful water pumping by a large-scale irrigator on the Barwon-Darling River.
The two water access
licences at the centre of these allegations allow the licence holder to pump
water from the Barwon-Darling River in accordance with specified licence
conditions, as well as rules set out in the relevant ‘water sharing plan’. The
conditions and rules specify – amongst other things – how much water can be
legally pumped in a water accounting year (which is the same as the financial
year) and at what times pumping is permissible (which depends on the volume of
water flowing in the river at any given time).
Our client alleges that
the holder of these licences pumped water in contravention of some of these
conditions and rules, thereby breaching relevant provisions of the Water
Management Act 2000 (NSW) (WM Act). The allegations are based on licence
data obtained by EDO NSW earlier in 2017 from Water NSW, a state-owned
corporation charged with the responsibility of regulating compliance with the
WM Act.
Analysis of this data,
along with the relevant rules and publicly available information on river
heights, indicates that the licence holder may have pumped significantly more
water than was permissible on one licence during the 2014-15 water year, and
taken a significant amount of water under another licence during a period of
low flow when pumping was not permitted in the 2015-16 water year. Despite
being made aware of these allegations by EDO NSW on two occasions, in April and
August 2017, and having had access to the data since at least July 2016, Water
NSW has not provided any indication that it intends to take compliance action
against the licence holder.
Both allegations concern
the potentially unlawful pumping of significant volumes of water, which may
have had serious impacts on environmental flows in the river and downstream
water users. However, our client is particularly concerned by the alleged
over-extraction in the 2014/15 water year, as this period was so dry that the
Menindee Lakes – which are filled by flows from the Barwon-Darling River – fell
to 4 percent of their total storage capacity. This in turn threatened Broken
Hill’s water security and led the NSW Government to impose an embargo on water
extractions during part of that year in order to improve flows down the
Barwon-Darling into the Lakes and Lower Darling River.
In these proceedings,
the Inland Rivers Network is seeking, amongst other things, an injunction
preventing the licence holder from continuing to breach the relevant licence
conditions. In addition, and in order to make good any depletion of
environmental flows caused by the alleged unlawful pumping, our client is also
asking the Court to require the licence holder to return to the river system an
equivalent volume of water to that alleged to have been unlawfully taken, or to
restrain the licence holder from pumping such a volume from the river system,
during the next period of low flows in the river system. Failure to comply with
a court order constitutes contempt of court, which is a criminal offence.
EDO NSW is grateful to
barristers Tom Howard SC and Natasha Hammond for their assistance in this
matter.
Brendan Dobbie, Senior
Solicitor at EDO NSW, has carriage of this matter for IRN.
The Australia Institute, Moving
targets: Barnaby Joyce, Warrego valley buybacks and amendments to the Murray
Darling Basin Plan, February 2018:
In 2008, then Senator
Joyce criticised the Labor government’s purchase of water in the Warrego
valley: that is going to have no effect whatsoever in solving the problems of
the lower Murray-Darling, and especially the southern states.
Despite the now Deputy
Prime Minister and Water Minister’s own fierce criticism of that purchase, he
approved the $16,977,600 purchase of another 10.611 gigalitres of water in the
Warrego valley in March 2017 at more than twice the price paid by the Labor
government. Questions should be raised about what changed the Deputy Prime
Minister’s mind and whether that purchase was value for money.
This purchase also has
serious implications for the recent amendments to the Basin Plan that was
disallowed by the Senate on 14 February 2018.
This purchase was not
required to meet the water recovery target in the Warrego under the
Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Instead, it was intended to count towards the water
recovery target in the Border Rivers. This swap required an amendment to s6.05
of the Basin Plan, which was tabled in parliament and disallowed by the Senate.
Yet, the Warrego purchase was not reflected in the Sustainable Diversion Limits
(SDLs) put to Parliament as part of the amendments.
Murray-Darling Basin
Authority (MDBA) is required to base its recommendations to change SDLs based
on best available science, but the proposed amendments allowed MDBA and States
to subsequently change the SDLs in a valley without any consideration of the
science.
While MDBA was seeking
public submissions on changes to valley SDLs, based on science; the Department
of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) was in negotiations to change those
valley targets, not based on science.
Parliament was asked to
pass an amendment to the Basin Plan with SDLs that would have been changed
based on a deal agreed over a year earlier, if the amendment had passed.
Given that the new SDLs
were known and agreed by governments, it is not apparent why the MDBA did not
include the new SDLs in the amendment put to parliament.
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