Under various visa categories an assurance of support is needed. The assurer is assessed on the basis of his/her income and requires submition of last 2 tax returns as proof of taxable income.

Under the new simplified super rules a retiree aged 60 can receive a pension free of tax via a super. This pension will not be required to be entered on a tax return therefore there will be no proof of income that Centrelink will accept from this type of assurer.

Do you know if this anomaly has been addressed somewhere else in the legislation? If not, do you know who it should be raised with?

Centrelink will only consider assessable income as evidenced on the Assurer's Tax Assessment Notice.

With AoS's being abolished for family sponsored general skilled visas where the application is submitted after the end of this coming August the issue you raise will probably become less problematic in future.

Best regards.

Alan,

It looks like you are agreeing with me that it is an anomaly and even though it may not be a problem for skilled visas in the future there are many other family sponsored visa applications that will be affected.

For example someone looking to sponsor a last remaining relative but who has an allocated pension from an SMSF will no longer be able to sponsor as the pension will not appear on his tax return. This surely was not the intention of the changes in the super and tax rules.

Who do you think I should raise the subject with - Centrelink?

You can try raising it with Centrelink and the Department of Immigration.

My hunch is you won't get very far though I'm afraid ... this is yet another example of a lack of joined up thinking within Government - when I have flagged such issues before (eg the significant increase in the AoS income requirement last year, which impacted on visa applications requiring an AoS that were already lodged) absolutely no change eventuated.

Keep us informed.

Best regards.

quote:

Originally posted by Paddy:
Alan,

It looks like you are agreeing with me that it is an anomaly and even though it may not be a problem for skilled visas in the future there are many other family sponsored visa applications that will be affected.

For example someone looking to sponsor a last remaining relative but who has an allocated pension from an SMSF will no longer be able to sponsor as the pension will not appear on his tax return. This surely was not the intention of the changes in the super and tax rules.

Who do you think I should raise the subject with - Centrelink?

Alan,

You said below that the AoS is being abolished, can you lead me to more information about this as we are a couple of weeks away from submitting our General Skilled Family Sponsered visa application and we KNOW that AoS income level's are going to be a problem for us, if the AoS is going to end then I would imagine it is worth our while waiting until September to submit our application?

There are fairly material changes to the general skilled program effective 1 September 2007.

I recommend a discussion with a competent adviser if yours is an "at risk" application - and you may need to prepare yourself to pay a fee.

Remember there are also changes to the points automatically available for English language competency.

In case of need:
http://www.gomatilda.com/contact.cfm#appraisal

Best regards.