ASFA ‘not as concerned’ about $3m super tax, Taylor remains ‘dead against’ it

The Coalition has not softened its stance on the Division 296 tax on assets above $3 million within super, with Taylor confirming he is “100 per cent dead against it”.

Speaking at Momentum Media’s Election 2025 event on Thursday morning, the shadow treasurer noted that the “good news” is that the bill never managed to get through parliament, so a potential Coalition government would not need to repeal it.

“I can absolutely assure you it will not go into place if I am the Treasurer of this nation, if we have a Dutton-led national government, we are dead against it,” Taylor said.

“I mean taxing unrealised capital gains, give me a break. They are unrealised, that's the point. So, how do you pay tax on an unrealised gain? You realise it. Well, these are small businesses. I mean, seriously, it wasn't thought through. It wasn't thought through.”

Adding that he thought there was a chance the Labor government would try to “push it through” during the last sitting week, Taylor said the tax is simply to fund “pet projects”.

“They are clearly trying to work with cross benches to get that over the line. But they are going to this election with that as a core policy for them, because they want the money and they want to spend it on whatever pet projects they want to spend money on,” he said.

“That will not be part of our costings.”

However, also speaking at the event, Mary Delahunty argued that the handwringing over taxing unrealised gains is being blown out of proportion.

“ASFA believes that the tax on earnings on assets above $3 million is a worthwhile pursuit, the bill and the shape that it's currently in, obviously has some hairs on it,” the ASFA chief executive said.

“I'm not as concerned on the taxation of unrealised capital gains as some other commentators are. I think we're all fairly familiar with land tax, which is also a taxation system that is based on unrealised capital gains.

“Whether or not that means you need to pay the tax at the time, or whether or not there should be some reform done to that bill that would see a debt held over. Those are the sorts of issues I think an incoming government might want to tackle if they want to bring more equity to the tax incentives in superannuation.”