Leading fund manager accuses Albanese govt of ‘gaslighting' Aussie taxpayers over its contested unrealised gains tax proposal
The Albanese government's proposal to double the tax rate to 30 per cent on funds in super accounts above $3 million has sparked fears for small business owners, farmers who hold properties in their self-managed super funds, and startup investors, who use SMSF's as an investment vehicle.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has claimed the tax would initially only hit 80,000 Australians, which even Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino conceded was not true, estimating about 1.2 million, or 10 per cent of taxpayers, will pay the tax within 30 years.
However, Wilson Asset Management founder Geoff Wilson said he believes in 30 years' time more than half the workforce would be paying this tax on unrealised gains, predicting about 8.1 million Australians will be paying tax on 'imaginary gains' by 2055.
'Albanese and Chalmers are gaslighting the Australian people by saying it's only 80,000 people,' he told SkyNews.com.au.
Mr Wilson said having to pay tax on profits you may never make seemed 'immoral'.
'Chalmers is so desperate to get it through and won't see logical sense - either he has a death wish and doesn't want to stay as treasurer or he wants to use division 296 tax for housing and other investment shares,' Mr Wilson said.
He said the Albanese government had 'made all these promises and someone's gotta fund it', adding the tax was 'illogical' and 'badly thought out'.
It came after Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus told Channel 9 the tax on unrealised capital gains on super balances above $3 million had 'got to be indexed' to ensure more people 'don't end up' falling into the bracket.
'But that's a very long time in the future,' she said.
Newly appointed Shadow Finance Minister James Paterson said the policy was 'wrong in principle' and the Coalition would 'fight this every step."
'Unless the government was willing to walk away from the two key principles in this bill, which is taxing unrealised gains and failing to index the threshold, then there's no conceivable world in which we could support it,' Mr Paterson told Sky News on Tuesday.
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