Chalmers ‘confused' about veteran MPs' super tax escape clause: Bragg

Sydney Morning Herald

27-05-2025

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg has accused Treasurer Jim Chalmers of not knowing how the government's new super tax will work after a senior Labor minister refused to say whether it was fair that some public officials would be able to delay paying their resultant tax bill.
Bragg, in a statement on Tuesday, said Chalmers had been unclear and confused about how the tax on super balances of more than $3 million would apply to the prime minister.
'Chalmers clearly hasn't read his unrealised gains tax bill and draft regulations,' he said. 'He doesn't know how it works for the prime minister and retired politicians.'
Pressure on the government's new tax on superannuation earnings has come from tax experts and investors who say the threshold should be indexed and the capturing of unrealised capital gains trashed. Chalmers himself has dismissed the calls.
The new tax, set to take effect on July 1, will double the tax rate for superannuation earnings from 15 per cent to 30 per cent for the portion above $3 million in a super balance. The tax rate will also apply to unrealised capital gains on amounts above this threshold.
Chalmers, at a press conference earlier this month, said he was unable to put an exact number on the amount of tax the prime minister would pay in the first year of his pension, but said there were provisions in the draft regulations for defined benefit schemes that would ensure the taxes were fair.
'When it comes to the prime minister, his pension's not yet known,' he said. 'There are calculations, [and] those calculations are very similar to the ones that the Liberals and Nationals put in when they changed superannuation in the last term of the government and will apply to the prime minister, [and] any politician who's got the equivalent of more than $3 million in super.'
Appearing on Nine's Today Show on Tuesday morning, Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth deflected a question on whether it was fair that some politicians elected before John Howard scrapped the scheme in 2004 could wait until retirement to pay the tax bill on their savings, while others caught by the tax – estimated to be just 1 in 200 people – would have to find the cash to pay immediately.
Rishworth, elected in 2007, will not get annual salary when she leaves parliament, but argued that all politicians would still have to pay the higher tax rate on earnings if their super balances tipped over the new threshold.