LIC & LIT Geoff Wilson is ready to march in the streets over dividend imputation changes

Geoff Wilson is ready to march in the streets over dividend imputation changes

 

There's a place on WAM's website to sign a petition against the proposed changes

 

Argo Investments attacks Labor franking policy

Argo Investments attacks Labor franking policy

starting to generate some criticism in the better investment circles .

i assume many will resort to NOT chasing franking credits , and thus more will look at international shares ( decreasing Australian tax paid ) and investments in trusts ( such as REITs )

hopefully many seniors will resist voting ALP ( we are an aging population , if the ALP goes extinct , will be worse off ? )

 

I think the only sensible conversation to have around Labour's policy is whether, and if so how best, to implement grandfathering arrangements.

The Howard/Costello change of allowing the refund of excess franking credits strikes me as just economically unjustified pork barrelling, and I struggle to see how it was ever passed. How do you pay for roads and hospitals and schools etc if the government doesn't clip the ticket on corporate earnings? Keating had it right when he introduced dividend imputation in 1987: remove the double taxation, and instead tax each dollar of corporate earnings just once, at a rate equal to the maximum of the corporate tax rate and the shareholder's marginal tax rate. In other words, every single dollar of corporate earnings got taxed, at the very least, at the corporate tax rate. No one in their right mind (including the author's of the Campbell Inquiry in 1981) can seriously argue that any single dollar of earnings from BHP, the big banks, or any other corporate should go untaxed.

There is accordingly nothing controversial about the ALP's idea to revert to Keating's original version of dividend imputation. In fact, it seems perfectly rational to me, and the only thing the ALP haven't addressed, which probably is worth having an adult discussion about, is what any grandfathering arrangements might look like.