Attention all self-employed older workers!

Did you know if you are self-employed and turn 70 years old Mr. Howard, who encourages us to keep on working past retirement age, actually punishes us for it by not allowing us to make tax deductible superannuation contributions. If you work for somebody else you can still do this, but NOT when you are self-employed. He promises us that he will extend our eligibility to 75 years, starting from the first July 2007. But don’t get excited about it! He can change this in an instant by just saying, we can’t afford it!

After the election, we can’t even ask a potential employee his or her age, yet he can discriminate against the very people who are actually doing what he wants them to do. He breathes not a word about the punishment he dishes out to us.

Do you really want such a government? I am urging everybody to think long and hard for whom to vote for at the next election.

Also I would like to know what Kevin Rudd has in store for us oldies, who save such huge sums of money for the government? If he doesn’t spell out whether he will continue with this discrimination because of age, be it 70 or 75, perhaps we all have to vote informal! In a tight election politicians should not ignore the vote of a ageing population!

Do you know it bites not just self-employed, but also those that might employ older workers - not even an employer can claim a tax deduction for super contributions for workers over 70, unless it is under an award instrument (which now have mostly been taken away with workchoices).

But Oldie, you might consider that from 1/7/07 that you can pull out either a pension or lump sum from your super fund to help prop up your income, and get it tax free. You cant have your cake and eat it too!

Actually I find it very interesting that a govt that gets caned in the media and by the opposition for mainly giving tax breaks to the rich has had little attention for the restrictions that it had put on the rich in regards to superannuation. Yes, if you have tonnes of money in super then you will now have access to lots of tax free cash. But what the changes have also done is severely restricted how much you can put into super. There have always been age-based limits for how much of a contribution is deductible, up to around $105,000 this year. Going forward this is going to be dropped to $50,000 for everyone (those on a higher limit will have the lower limit phased in gradually). In the past, there has been no limit to the amount of undeducted contributions to super, so you had plenty of cash, particularly if you were getting close to retirement, you would drop it into super, where as an investment it would be taxed at 15% rather than the top marginal rate of 48.5% (which has now dropped to 46.5%), and you effectively have greater earning power on your cash. Now, undeducted contributions are capped at $150,000 per year. This will only affect the richer elements of the community, as the vast majority of workers wouldnt ever get to the $150k mark. I just find this a very interesting policy standpoint by a liberal govt.

I agree, this is not fair. They expect older people to work, then older people should receive the benefits that everyone else does. At the moment this is discriminatory. I can't see why the Howard Government would not resolve this problem.

They must have missed it. Try raising this with Koschie on Seven Sunrise, on the Roswal. Super is Koshie's pet subject. This is great publicity for such a cause to go to Government attention.

This was not designed for the people

This was only for pollies interests those that will be retiring

that is why The Australian Peoples Party is going to cut pollie super down,and down and their perks.

Should i care if trying to get in NO

why
because this party is about the people and doing the right thing.
I dont have 69% public funded super or perks and didnt get stuff when i was med discharged from the army so why should they.

www.tapp.org.au