Speaking at a press conference in Gladstone this week, Bill Shorten commented on speculation by the Liberal Party stating that Labor intended to introduce a death tax if elected.
“I want to call out the latest bit of rubbish from the government lie machine, and that is the so-called death tax. There’s actually only one leader who’s actually never ruled out a death tax, and that’s the current Prime Minister,” Mr Shorten said.
“Labor has never had any plan for a death tax under my leadership.”
Mr Shorten ruled out any plans for a death tax under Labor and labelled the speculation about the proposed tax as “ridiculous propaganda”.
Back in January this year, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg issued a statement suggesting that death taxes were a possibility under a Labor government.
“Given Labor is already proposing to tax Australians from the cradle to the grave, it is certainly not out of the question that Labor would consider taxing people beyond the grave,” Mr Frydenberg said in the press release.
Mr Frydenberg also referred to a policy document by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) from their Congress in July last year, and suggested that Labor may “cave to its demands”.
The ACTU stated that consideration should be given to taxing the inheritances in the hands of the beneficiary.
“A lifetime threshold could be made available to the taxpayer with tax payable once cumulative inheritances exceeded the threshold,” the ACTU stated in its policy document.
Death duties were abolished in Australia in 1979. However, in the context of superannuation, the death of a member can still give rise to various taxes and duties.
Since 1 July 2017, death benefit pensions have counted towards the surviving spouse’s $1.6 million transfer balance cap.
This limit may force benefits to come out as a lump sum to the surviving spouse because the law still requires super to be paid out as soon as practicable after a person’s death. When this occurs as a lump sum and an asset such as real estate needs to be transferred out, this can trigger a CGT event for the super fund.
Labor’s answer to everything is just tax, tax and more new tax ! Got to love a lying Labor party and PM eh ……. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann confirmed Labor could not be trusted. “Labor when they came into government in 2007 inherited a $20 billion surplus and turned that into a record deficit,”. Rarely has a government promised so much, spent so much, said so much, and launched so many nationwide programs, and delivered so little value for money and expectation. The Howard Government returned the Budget to surplus after a previous labor spend up.Then two years of Kevin Rudd has produced 20 years of debt, and most of it cannot be blamed on the global financial crisis. He managed to single handily blow all of the BILLIONS in surplus money left behind by John Howard ( one of the greatest PM’s we will ever see ) in less than 9 months and went on to rack up $240 billion in deficits over six years. Well done Labor, our kids kids kids kids may just manage to pay that off one day …… fair dinkum Australian’s – wake up !!!
You forgot about the GFC which sent revenue through the floor as happened all around the world and as happened again due to the pandemic. Labor 2007-13 spent less as a % of GDP than the Coalition 2013-19 despite the stimulus packages around 2009 to keep the economy going.
I always thought the remaining partner received the superannuation money
Best to have ‘nominated beneficiary’ – otherwise the process could become painful
Labor will not introduce a death tax. the Liberals continue to lie about what Labor will introduce because they know they only support the big end of town. Vote for them at your peril – again.
Ahhhhhh you sound like Bill Shorten’s right hand man sprouted the same rubbish he did about “the big end of town”………;…for anyone who begrudges “the big end of town” for actually working hard and making money, just remember that The Tax Office’s tax statistics for 2015-16 shows that 44.9 per cent of the total net tax collected was paid by the top 10 per cent of taxpayers. Furthermore the top 1 per cent of taxpayers – about 90,000 people – contributed 16.9 per cent. In fact the top 3% of taxpayers in this country pay more annual income tax than the bottom 20 odd % and you would be amazed at how many millions of Australians actually receive more in Centrelink benefits ( both “legitimately” and those who sponge of the workers because they’re to bloody lazy to work ) than what they actually pay in tax….so before anyone wants to have a shot of “the big end of town”, do your research first and learn your facts……otherwise until then – shut the hell up as you don’t know sh*t from clay !!!!
All I know is that irrespective of what 1 party says it won’t do and then does anyway the other takes full advantage of it even when given opportunity to reverse what was done. After all you can’t trust either of them
funny how liberal voters say such things
And John Howard said there would be no GST
ahhh no that’s not correct …….. that’s why John Howard actually got elected – because of his honesty and the fact he said that if elected he WOULD introduce the GST and it’s the best thing to have ever happened to our country !
I wonder if either party would consider removing the death taxes on super members that currently exists?
Note “under my leadership” – he’ll roll if threatened by the ACTU. As for being “ridiculous propaganda”, so was Labor’s Medi-Scare campaign at the last election – but was rolled gold truth according to Bill and is still listed on the Labor campaign website. No point whinging when your own tactics are used against you. I suggest BS spend time reading up on his tax policies – or at least those that have not ‘disappeared’ from the campaign website.
And Bob Hawke said that there would be no capital gains tax!
Is this a similar ‘ruling out’ to when he ruled out new taxes on Superannuation?