Age Pension Concierge @ yourpension.com.au

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...

The Greens have announced they have struck a deal with the Government and agreed to a reduced age pension for most. Over 4 years the $2.5 billion dollar saving will be the biggest single measure in the 2015 budget. Most commentary has been focused on the impact of the assets test where some pensioners are to lose more than $13,000 pa. What must also be taken into account is that many pensioners may now have an income based assessed pension. You can not asses the impact via the assets test alone. There is a cumulative impact of the changes when the pension operates both on assets and income test to determine which generates the lowest entitlement. There will be far more age pensioners impacted than has been reported. There must be a recognition of what all too many say about the age pension. Those currently applying still remember the days when their wage had a deduction for contributions to the age pension. Many have shown us their pay slips with that deduction.  N...