Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1523 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

accounts, they are incurring the tax and they are entitled to relief. They should not be told by the Government that they have to limit their withdrawals to a certain number of withdrawals a week. Mr Speaker, for those reasons, I do not think there is anything to apologise for in the greater program costs associated with the Labor Party's proposal.

The other argument that has been proposed is that there is a significant risk of avoidance. The Tasmanian experience was cited. Mr Speaker, the avoidance in Tasmania needs to be considered in the light of the following: In Tasmania, every account owned by someone under the age of 19 is exempt. So, it is very possible for parents with a power of attorney over their child's account to avail themselves of an exemption from debits tax in the Tasmanian system and operate that account for their own purposes while using their child's name. That is not possible in the ACT under these arrangements. Secondly, in Tasmania the exemptions are granted by the financial institution, whereas in the ACT the exemptions will be granted by the Revenue Commissioner. Mr Speaker, I would have thought that, in 1997, people would understand that, if someone who is administering a scheme has nothing to gain or lose by how the scheme is administered, they are not going to administer it as well as if it is administered by the Revenue Commissioner, whose revenue is at stake. The simple fact is that the banks would err on the side of generosity if they were administering the scheme. That is why I think it is more appropriate that the scheme be administered through certificates of exemption issued by the Revenue Commissioner.

Mr Speaker, the third thing that should be noted about the Tasmanian experience is that the Tasmanian experience did not have any real review mechanism to ensure that exemptions, once granted, were still applicable. As I have already indicated, because of the mechanism for ensuring that the duration of the certificate is appropriate to the risk that the person's circumstances will change, the chances of that occurring are minimised. People who are likely to have changes in circumstances can be issued with certificates for limited periods, which will ensure that those people do not continue to get exemptions long after their eligibility for those exemptions has disappeared. Mr Speaker, for those reasons, the experience of Tasmania is not really applicable to the ACT. The opportunities for avoidance, which have existed at least in the past in Tasmania, do not appear to me to have anything like as high a risk in the ACT.

Mrs Carnell, in private discussions, would wheel out the anecdote about the doctor who used their grandmother's account to do all the transactions for their multi-thousand-dollar medical practice. I do not know the truth or otherwise of that anecdote. Anecdotes have a habit of being hypothetical and not based on real-life experience. But I am willing to concede that perhaps it is based on real-life experience.

Mr Berry: It is sometimes fashioned to meet the circumstances.

MR WHITECROSS: It is sometimes fashioned to meet the circumstances, Mr Berry; but I am happy to concede in this case that perhaps it did occur. It is one of the unfortunate facts of life that there are people out there in the community who will try all sorts of things to get around concessions which are legitimately offered to people who deserve them.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .