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Showing posts from November, 2016

Rebalancing the Assets Test

By now most pensioners will have received a letter from Centrelink outlining the changes to the age pension test from 1 January 2017. We have received a significant number of queries regarding this letter. Hence, we will attempt to summarise the most common concerns. For expediency we will use one central reference ‘document’ that in turn refers to key Government data. This reference is one of a series of fact checks published by The Conversation. We will refer to this document as The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-half-to-two-thirds-of-the-australian-population-receiving-a-government-benefit-41027 Proportion of pensioners affected – 90% unaffected sounds better than 300,000 Australians to lose. The Centrelink letter states that “Ninety per cent of pensioners will either not be affected by this change or will receive an increase in their pension”. The Conversation estimates that 2.4 million Australians “were receiving Age Pensions or Veterans Affair