The Australian’s James Kirby believes that changing attitudes makes now an ideal time to implement an inheritance tax:
- New academic work suggests Australians now have “a surprisingly high level of support for wealth transfer taxation”.
- “Most participants simply had no objection to wealth transfer taxation: Their support was based less on reasons why these taxes should exist than a lack of reasons why they shouldn’t’”, says the report.
- The report suggests two-thirds of the survey respondents thought Australia should consider reintroducing taxes on estates worth more than $3 million.
- Global studies show the biggest generational handover ever seen is coming down the line in the decades ahead.
- Locally, over the coming decades at least $3.5 trillion of assets will be inherited in Australia.
The Treasury’s Retirement Income Review, published late last year, touched on some of these issues, noting that “superannuation death benefits are projected to increase from around $17 billion in 2019 to just under $130 billion in 2059”:
