Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I moved this motion seeking to have this Senate inquiry because the Greens have campaigned for changes to taxation on discretionary trusts. We took to the last election a comprehensive policy, fully costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, to tax distributions at a level that corporations are taxed at. We did a lot of work on this, and we feel this is a very important area. Saying that, I recognise the complexity involved in tax law around discretionary trusts. I recognise they do have legitimate purposes; however, we thought this was a really good opportunity to show how the system is being rorted. The PBO costed this at nearly $5 billion in revenue over the forward estimates that we could use for schools and hospitals if we cracked down on this, but we acknowledge we want to get it right. There may be unintended consequences from policy changes. We hope this will be implemented in a future government, but this is a really good opportunity for us to get the detail right.

Question negatived.