As readers will know, I and my colleagues at LMI have been actively advocating for the removing of fireside companies levies on insurance coverage premiums for over 20 years together with creating the web site NoTaxOnInsurance.com.au in 2006 and submitting an in depth submission to the Black Saturday Royal Fee.
Each impartial enquiry into this slender primarily based tax reveals that it’s unfair and penalises those who insure absolutely, whereas on the opposite facet of the coin, encourages underneath insurance coverage or non insurance coverage because of the added value of insurance coverage.
This added value is a triple whammy with premiums first hit Fireplace Service or Emergency Service Levy, the GST after which State Authorities Stamp Duties compounded on prime of the insurance coverage premium. This triple tax on insurance coverage, a product that has elevated in value sooner than the speed of inflation for a few years, makes insurance coverage much more unaffordable for a lot of house and enterprise homeowners.
At a time when there’s clearly an growing threat of pure peril losses it’s extra vital than ever that the federal government to do what they’ll to encourage house and enterprise homeowners to insure, in order that they themselves, and within the case of companies the buyers, the workers, communities and our financial system, are protected with insurance coverage quite than depend on authorities handouts which have proved to be woefully insufficient.
Queensland was the primary to take away hearth service levies approach again in 1986, with the newest being Victoria, however solely after the tragic Black Saturday Bush Fires in 2009. How many individuals perished defending their uninsured property, we are going to by no means know.
In the present day, 13 years after Victoria, the Tasmanian authorities has lastly seen the sunshine and have pledged to take away the tax. That is nice information for the folks of Tasmania. The tax was solely on enterprise insurance coverage in Tasmania, with the tax on house and contents already abolished.
This can make property and enterprise interruption insurance coverage cheaper in Tasmania, not simply by the Fireplace Service Levy however the authorities taxes utilized to the Fireplace Companies Levy.
Everybody advantages from a nicely funded and educated hearth and emergency service, and everybody should be paying their fair proportion, not simply those who insure.
With Tasmania lastly seeing the sunshine it solely leaves New South Wales, who had agreed to take away their Emergency Companies Levy on insurance coverage solely to vary their thoughts 6 weeks out from begin date, left with this insidious unfair tax.
We urge the New South Wales authorities to comply with Tasmania and take away the Emergency Companies Tax instantly.
