The accuracy of the content is not guaranteed. Please rely only on the authorised document. Following yesterday’s Senate Committee hearing on the effects of the New Business Tax System (Miscellaneous) Bill No. 2 2000, ARISA urges all parties to find a workable solution to this legislation that will ensure consistency across different legal structures, and allow the Parliament to pass this important legislation before 30 June 2000. Any delay in Parliamentary passage of the legislation now would mean that providers of income streams would be operating in an uncertain environment given that the tax measures have a 1st July 2000 start up date. ARISA strongly believes in the provision of a consistent regulatory regime for similar superannuation and retirement income products offered by different entities (this includes products offered by superannuation funds, fund managers, life companies and via RSAs). The original Bill has been constructed with this principle in mind and to this end, any subsequent changes should reflect consistency across the different providers of retirement income streams where ever possible. This is a similar logic to that used to develop the highly successful social security changes that were incorporated in September 1998. (These changes, which were implemented with bipartisan political support, provide consumers with consistent social security outcomes regardless of the product vehicle.) ARISA’s Chairman, Mr Tony Negline, said "This consistency has not been met with some of the recent proposed amendments to exempt small funds only from some aspects of the deferred capital gains tax (CGT) to apply upon transfer of assets from superannuation to a retirement income stream." "ARISA is concerned that the proposals could lead to a significant distortion in the market place between different classes of investments and different economic classes within our community", Mr Negline said. Within the superannuation and life insurance industries similar products can be packaged under different legal structures if one structure is more favoured from a regulatory point of view than another. This is particularly so where there are taxation anomalies that arise between different legal structures. Regulatory consistency between different legal structures ensures that this situation does not arise. Mr Negline added, "Consistency ensures that consumers are able to get on with the job of planning for their future based on overall outcomes rather than focusing on different structures."
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