Latest news with #WilsonAssetManagement
ABC News
4 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
US inflation and tariff fears rattle markets once more - with the ASX seeing its biggest fall in more than ten weeks
Wilson Asset Management's Anna Milne says equities markets still aren't pricing in tariff risks to the same degree as bond markets.
Sky News AU
04-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
'Ridiculous, stupid, insane': Leading fund manager lashes Labor's tax on unrealised gains proposal as PM remains certain on plan
Wilson Asset Management founder Geoff Wilson has fiercely opposed Labor's controversial plan to tax unrealised gains, branding it 'ridiculous,' 'stupid,' and 'insane'. The proposal by the Albanese government to double the tax rate on super accounts above $3m and target unrealised gains on assets came under the microscope at The Australian's Australia's Economic Outlook on Friday. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who presented the keynote address at the event, remained steadfast on the superannuation tax proposal. 'The proposal that was put forward, we put forward in the last term. It would affect just a very small number (of people),' Mr Albanese said, regarding Labor's proposed super tax changes. Questioned about whether he would consider indexing the tax or removing the tax on unrealised gains, the Prime Minister declined. Following Mr Albanese's appearance at the event on Friday, Mr Wilson told Sky News he agreed with sentiments expressed by the Prime Minister in his speech that businesses should be the primary source growth in the economy. But Mr Wilson described the current economic environment for Australian businesses as 'incredibly tough' and urged the Albanese government to 'not overtax and overregulate'. 'And that's the problem I think all Australian companies have got at the moment,' he said. 'Effectively, we don't want any more pleasantries. Our small, medium-sized and even large companies in Australia need some action by this government. We are one of the highest-taxed OECD countries.' Mr Wilson said he hoped to see reductions in both income and corporate tax within the government's tax reform plans, before he took aim the controversial unrealised tax gains proposal. 'One of the things that needs to be off the table is the ridiculous, or stupid, or insane tax on unrealised gains, which really is incredibly negative for medium long-term productivity,' he said. 'Any small growth company in Australia that's looking for patient capital from the superannuation sector, and there's $1.1 trillion in self-managed super funds, that's going to evaporate if this tax comes in.' AustralianSuper chief executive Paul Schroder, who also spoke at this year's Australia's Economic Outlook, also pushed back against the tax plan. Questioned by Sky News' Business Editor Ross Greenwood if he thought the tax was bad policy, Mr Schroder did not give an explicit answer. However, Mr Schroder did say AustralianSuper "prefers less changes than more changes" and that he "would never do anything to anyone else who's trying to make good super".
Sky News AU
04-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
‘Incredibly tough': Calls for PM to address over-regulation and over-taxation in business
Wilson Asset Management founder Geoff Wilson says one of Australia's largest business problems is over-taxation and over-regulation, calling upon the Albanese government for an end to the 'pleasantries'. This comes amid Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's address at Australia's Economic Outlook 2025. 'It's an incredibly tough environment,' Mr Wilson told Sky News host Danica De Giorgio. 'What we need the government to do is to not overtax and overregulate – and that's the problem that all Australian companies have got at the moment. 'We don't want any more pleasantries, our small, medium-sized, and even large companies in Australia need some action by this government. 'Something has to be done.'
Sky News AU
02-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
Treasurer Jim Chalmers under fire for refusal to ‘take feedback' on superannuation tax changes
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has been accused of refusing 'to listen' after he repeatedly rejected calls from a litany of groups to index the government's 'flawed' unrealised gains tax on super accounts. Opposition to Labor's plan to double the tax rate from 15 to 30 per cent on super accounts over $3 million has picked up pace, with former prime minister Paul Keating and secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions' Sally McManus blasting the government for not indexing the policy. Mr Chalmers is being urged to dump or drastically overhaul the plan ahead of the upcoming economic reform roundtable. It comes as after a report from Wilson Asset Management revealed the move would inflict a $20 billion hit to the budget over four years, with an array of small growth businesses and startups forgoing billions in tax revenue. Liberal MP Aaron Violi blasted the Treasurer for declining to heed the advice of a long line of industry experts and said the government should be willing to make concessions if it wanted to tackle stagnating productivity. 'It's clear these changes to superannuation indexation are not supported by Sally McManus at the ACTU. Paul Keating let the cat out of the bag yesterday about indexation, that most if not all Australians ... will now be hit,' Mr Violi said. 'Indexation is one of those red lines for us as a Coalition because we know more and more Australians will hit that $3 million mark in the future and the reality is that $3 million today will be different to $3 million in ten, twenty and thirty years. 'Jim Chalmers has to be prepared to listen and take the feedback, and I don't know anyone outside of Jim and Anthony Albanese that think this is a good proposal.' Chairman and Chief Investment Officer at Wilson Asset Management Geoff Wilson also despaired that young Australians entering the workforce today would be caught up in the tax due to wages and inflation shifts over time. "In terms of destroying the aspirations for young Australians, that's what this tax on unrealised gains is going to do,' Mr Wilson said. He also savaged the government for taxing unrealised capital gains which is widely considered an unprecedented move that goes against decades of Australian taxation theory. 'It's illogical, it's flawed, some people are saying it's s criminal theft, paying tax on a profit or a gain you may never make.' Mr Wilson told Sky News he would be penning a formal submission to the government's productivity roundtable containing his fund's dire findings and arguing that the tax would be a productivity killer. Mr Violi railed against the government for targeting unrealised gains, and said the move was sparking alarm and outrage among his constituents. 'That principle of taxing unrealised capital gains, farms in my community and others that might have a paper profit but they don't actually have the money to pay an extra tax on that, they are the two red lines for us,' Mr Violi said. Labor MP Julian Hill told Sky News that the change would only impact a modest amount of wealthy Australians. 'We took the tax change to the election, we have a mandate, that's our position, I think that we've won that argument with the Australian people.'
Sky News AU
01-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
Leading fund manager accuses Albanese govt of ‘gaslighting' Aussie taxpayers over its contested unrealised gains tax proposal
A leading fund manager has accused the Albanese government of 'gaslighting' the Australian people by claiming only 80,000 people would be affected by its unrealised capital 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 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.
