The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (ICAA) wants to end what it describes as superannuation discrimination against the self-employed who it says are disadvantaged by the co-contribution regime, the taxation of invalidity payments and eligible service periods.
The ICAA’s spokesperson on superannuation, Susan Orchard says the ICAA is asking the Federal Government to review the three areas to make the superannuation system fairer and more equitable.
“The ICAA believes there is a need for consistency of treatment for all workers and these issues need to be addressed because the changing nature of the workforce is resulting in more people being self-employed and therefore more people being hit by legislative discrimination,” she says.
Orchard points to the co-contribution regime as discriminating against the self-employed because the tax deductibility of their contribution is less than that which applies to an employee, and even if they make an additional post-tax contribution of $1,000 they are not eligible for the co-contribution.
She says self-employed people are similarly disadvantaged with respect to invalidity payments because they do not have access to a tax-free invalidity amount, while the rules applying to eligible service periods also limit the tax deductibility of the exercise.
