The bill that will introduce the Division 296 tax on superannuation balances has passed the House of Representatives without amendment and will now move to the Senate for further debate.
Debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions and Other Measures) Bill 2023 resumed in the lower house today, with amendments by teal independents to use a proxy rate for earnings and the indexation of the $3 million threshold defeated. The amendments were previously presented during an earlier debate on the bill.
Proposed amendments by the opposition financial services spokesman Luke Howarth to have schedules one to three removed, which contain the Division 296 tax, were also defeated.
The resumption of debate comes five months after the bill was last raised in parliament, with a second reading debate and vote taking place on 16 May, and 10 months after it was introduced into parliament on 30 November 2023.
The SMSF Association has noted the lack of action in the House of Representatives has been offset by negotiations in the Senate where the government does not have sufficient numbers to pass the bill and will rely on crossbenchers to do so.
Association chief executive Peter Burgess recently told members support for the bill was not confirmed in the Senate and its advocacy work in Canberra indicated independent senators were concerned about the lack of indexation and the taxing of unrealised capital gains.
