Submission to Inquiry into the implications of removing refundable franking credits, November 2018
Federal Labor’s plan to remove refunds for excess franking credits is a fair way to help improve the budget and wind back the growing intergenerational transfers in our tax system. But there is a better way, as Budget Policy Program Director Danielle Wood and Fellow Brendan Coates show in this submission. More substantial reforms – such as taxing superannuation earnings in the pension phase at 15 per cent (super distributions would remain tax free) and winding back the Seniors and Pensioners Tax Offset – would achieve the same benefits but without some of the investment-distorting effects of Labor’s policy.