Following on from his previous comments about simplifying the regulatory framework for financial advice as part of Australia’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery, SMSF Association CEO John Maroney has suggested seven specific areas where red tape around advice can be reduced.
The areas Maroney listed were:
- Providing financial advisers access to super tax portals
- Streamlining total superannuation balance thresholds
- Improving superannuation residency rules for SMSFs
- Repealing the work test
- Providing a practical approach to non-geared unit trust breaches
- Introducing an amnesty to convert legacy pensions to modern products
- Introducing an effective spousal equalisation measure.
Explaining how these changes would assist advisers and consumers, Maroney said: “We believe finding a solution to the issue about how SMSF and superannuation advice and services fit into the financial advice regulatory framework for accountants, financial advisers and superannuation trustees is an important and necessary first step.”
Previously, Maroney commended the Government’s measures to “alleviate the economic fallout caused by this pandemic,” but said cutting advice red tape should also be on the table, with a view to making the service more accessible and affordable.
He said that advice0 “will play a crucial role in helping many Australians and businesses recover from this economic crisis … so it’s more important than ever that the Government commits to reform.”
He continued: “The recovery period now provides an opportunity to rethink and design the professional advice framework. This includes the provision of ‘strategic advice’ that is decoupled from products and ‘scaled advice’ that could allow broader access to advice for consumers about how to structure their financial affairs.”
Maroney’s comments echo FPA CEO Dante De Gori’s interview in the latest season of Future Talk, where he said that there needs to be more scope for advisers to address a “niche market” without offering the “full scale of services a comprehensive financial planner does,” and that “the regulations and licensing regime should allow that.”
You can watch De Gori’s Future Talk videos here.
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