The Australian Democrats have again offered the Government a solution to the ongoing problems inherent in the administration of the Family Tax Benefit (FBT) and Child Care Benefit (CCB).
Democrats' Family and Community Services spokesperson Senator Brian Greig, says many families are incurring unwanted debts because they are unable to accurately estimate their forward income, which determines their access to FBT payments.
"The Government's approach to FTB, is that when it finds another error or anomaly in the system it slaps another bandaid amendment onto this complex legislation. This will never work in the long term, we have to address the core of the problem," Senator Greig said.
Senator Greig said his party recommends an "estimate leeway", so families are not penalised for being unable to accurately gauge their forward income, especially when so much employment these days is casual and part-time.
"We need a system which better recognises changes in family incomes over a given period of time," Senator Greig said.
But instead, the bandaids the Government is applying to the FTB include:
Changing the method for calculating FTB for those returning to the workforce to fix up the anomaly of overpayments made, through no fault of their own, to parents returning to the workforce after having a child,
Changing the treatment of debts to fix up anomalies which penalise separated parents and their children when the former partner fails to submit a tax return,
Changing the income test - to fix up the problem of some parents not receiving the one-off supplement at the end of the year, and,
Changes to rent assistance to fix up the problem of a person's whole income support being stopped if the landlord fails to issue a rent certificate.
"We need to reinstate the estimate leeway that once existed, and which provided for a much fairer system," Senator Greig said.
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