As readers will know, I and my colleagues at LMI have been actively advocating for the elimination of fireplace 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 slim primarily based tax reveals that it’s unfair and penalises people who insure absolutely, whereas on the opposite facet of the coin, encourages beneath insurance coverage or non insurance coverage as a result of added value of insurance coverage.
This added value is a triple whammy with premiums first hit Hearth 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 quicker than the speed of inflation for a few years, makes insurance coverage much more unaffordable for a lot of house and enterprise house owners.
At a time when there may be clearly an rising threat of pure peril losses it’s extra essential than ever that the federal government to do what they’ll to encourage house and enterprise house owners to insure, in order that they themselves, and within the case of companies the traders, 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 fireplace service levies means again in 1986, with the latest being Victoria, however solely after the tragic Black Saturday Bush Fires in 2009. How many individuals perished defending their uninsured property, we’ll by no means know.
At this time, 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.
It will make property and enterprise interruption insurance coverage cheaper in Tasmania, not simply by the Hearth Service Levy however the authorities taxes utilized to the Hearth Companies Levy.
Everybody advantages from a nicely funded and educated fireplace and emergency service, and everybody must be paying their fair proportion, not simply people 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 alter their thoughts 6 weeks out from begin date, left with this insidious unfair tax.
We urge the New South Wales authorities to observe Tasmania and take away the Emergency Companies Tax instantly.