We recently made a written submission to Treasury regarding the exposure draft Bills for the proposed Division 296 tax (as discussed on page 3 of this edition of Voice). 

In our submission, we acknowledged that the Government's revised Division 296 proposal includes several welcome improvements. These include the indexation of the "large" ($3 million) and "very large" ($10 million) superannuation balance thresholds, as well as a shift towards taxing a proportion of realised earnings and gains, rather than unrealised amounts. 

Despite these improvements, we raised the following concerns: 

• Potential issues in applying the relevant total superannuation balance amount to determine whether Division 296 tax is payable by an individual. 
• Potential Division 296 tax implications following the death of an individual. 
• Potential issues regarding the impact of the revised Division 296 tax on individuals receiving a reversionary death benefit pension. 

Editor: A copy of our written submission is on our website — click here.