Govt rules out limited recourse borrowing review
Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos has announced the government is not looking to conduct a specific review of limited recourse borrowing.
Speaking at the SMSF Professionals’ Association of Australia national conference in Brisbane yesterday, Senator Sinodinos said there is no separate review of limited recourse borrowing or of other parts of the SMSF sector currently underway.
“We’re not looking to have a review specifically into limited recourse borrowing, let me make that quite clear,” Senator Sinodinos said.
“There is the financial [sector] inquiry, which is looking at the overall architecture of the financial system and as part of that it will also look at the role of the superannuation sector, the savings pool… of which SMSFs are about a third,” he added.
“That’s looking at the sector through what I call a systemic lens. It’s looking at how each part of the system impacts on the rest of the system, as opposed to having a specific review of either the licensing or the regulation around this sector.”
Following the Senator’s address, AMP SMSF’s Peter Burgess said recent discussions with Treasury suggest they haven’t been asked by government to start a review.
“We need to remember that the decision to do this two-year review was a previous government initiative, the current government’s [view is] … they don’t believe there needs to be a standalone review of limited recourse borrowing,” Mr Burgess said.
“I think what will happen here is that review will end up in the financial sector review, along with the decision to license these arrangements, which has been on the table now for a number of years.”
