Tax justice for unpaid carers

04 February 2013

Last week the political leaders were brawling over assistance payments for middle-class Australians. Tony Abbott promised 'tax justice for families' by removing indexation from the health insurance rebate and other payments. Julia Gillard considers this 'middle class welfare', but is determined to protect Labor's own generous school kids bonus. Abbott calls this a 'cash splash' that is 'totally unrelated to education' because it does not require recipients to submit receipts.

The spectacle of the leaders' fight for the votes of middle Australia dominated last week's media. Little attention was given to a Human Rights Commission report that highlighted the ongoing need to reward Australia's 5.5 million unpaid carers.

Investing in care: Recognising and valuing those who care focuses on the personal sacrifices of those who care for parents, in-laws, children, grandchildren and others in our community with disability, chronic illness or frailty due to old age. There is no 'tax justice' for these families, according to the Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick.

'The failure of our superannuation and taxation systems, alone, to recognise this contribution and provide a value for this unpaid work means that carers — mostly women — who have had long and repeated absences from paid employment, find they have negligible retirement savings and indeed, often retire in poverty.'

Unpaid carers include both parents and guardians of children as well as those who care for a family member or friend with disability, chronic illness or frailty due to older age. The first group are better provided for, although grandparents who spend many hours providing free childcare may beg to differ. It is the carers of those with lifelong chronic conditions who find themselves working as virtual slaves.

As the report points out, they lack the ability to provide for their own old age, when they may not be fortunate enough to have a family member to care for them. In addition, their activity does not fulfil the Catholic 'moral obligation to link industriousness as a virtue with the social order of work, which will enable man to become, in work, "more a human being" and not be degraded by it'.

The report's recommendations include legislation to assist unpaid carers with mechanisms like carer assessments to determine their support needs, and carer cards securing access to services and entitlements which would allow them to participate in society on a more equal footing. There is also a call for reform to the current system of retirement income and savings,

AUSTRALIA

Tax justice for unpaid carers

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