Government proposes ASIC funding decrease

Last week, the government released its paper titled Proposed Financial Institutions Supervisory Levies, which outlines the levies set to recover the operational costs of ASIC and other Commonwealth agencies and departments.  

The total levy required to fund ASIC’s operational costs in the 2016-17 federal budget was $70.4 million, the paper shows. This has now been reduced to $49.6 million for 2017-18.

The government said unlike operational costs, ongoing costs for the regulator won’t be recovered through Financial Institutions Supervisory Levies.

“From 2017-18, none of ASIC’s ongoing costs will be recovered through the FISLs. As such there has been a commensurate decrease in the amount being collected for ASIC activities through the FISLs,” the paper said.

“In-line with the government’s objectives for the ASIC Industry Funding Model – in particular, increasing the transparency of ASIC’s regulatory costs and activities – it is expected that none of ASIC’s costs will be recovered through the FISLs from 2020-21.”

The levy will cover ASIC’s costs in relation to financial capability, the operation of the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT) and ASIC's activities related to the government's ‘Improving Outcomes in Financial Services’ package, the paper said.

The ASIC industry funding model was introduced into Parliament in March.