Hockey renews no super change pledge

The Federal Treasurer, Joe Hockey believes Australian superannuation fund returns are at historically low levels and this justifies the Government maintaining its commitment not to unnecessarily alter the super tax regime.

Addressing a PWC Tax Summit yesterday, Hockey also signalled that while the Government would not be looking to change the super tax settings during the life of the current Parliament it also had no plans to do so into the future.

Answering questions at the tax summit, the Treasurer said, "the fact is superannuation returns are at an extremely low level".

"From a historic perspective, more and more Australians rely on their retirement savings and if you were to impose new additional taxes as our political opponents want to do, on superannuation, you're going to simply reduce the amount of money that retirees have in their pockets," he said.

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Hockey said that not only was the Government going to stick to its promise not to "engage in adverse or unexpected changes to superannuation in our first term of government" but also stated "we have no plans to increase superannuation taxes in the future".

"During a period of low global interest rates, which can have a significant impact on superannuation balances – plus the volatility in the world economy – why would a government want to increase taxes on super?" the Treasurer asked.