“…many financial advisers … are already advising retirees to ditch Australian shares in favour of offshore equities. So instead of Australian retirees investing in safe Australian blue chip shares, they are being forced to change to risky offshore accounts. The Australian economy will suffer as a result. Jobs will be lost.
The other Labor misconception that Senator Keneally is promoting is that ‘why should retirees who pay zero tax get a refund’. Well, this is a very clever and nasty misconception. It misleads a lot of people. Retirees have paid tax through the company according to the number of shares they own. Dividend imputation was introduced to avoid double taxation.
Ms Keneally, why are you trying to deny [rebates on excess tax paid] to retirees and continue to promote Labor’s retiree tax grab? It is not a tax on the wealthy as you are promoting, it is a punitive tax on modest retirees and low income earners.
Assertions by Bowen and Shorten that they are not worried about retirees because they do not need their vote, is a very dangerous precedent and not acceptable in modern Australian politics. A government needs to represent all its constituents and not exclude one section of the community merely because it feels it doesn’t need its vote. This just shows that Mr Shorten is not to be trusted. Also, eventually we all will become retirees.
Source: Oberon Review