ASIC Adviser Levy – Your Say

4
It's reasonable that the freeze on the ASIC adviser levy has now been removed after two years.
  • Disagree (88%)
  • Agree (7%)
  • Not sure (4%)

Our latest poll stems from the announcement earlier this week that the freeze applied to the cost of the ASIC adviser levy will be removed after two years.

By way of background, the then Coalition Government actually reduced the ASIC levy for personal advice licensees for the 2020/21 financial year – down from the $2,246 per adviser that was charged in 2019/20 to the previous year’s level of $1,142. This amount was levied in both the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years.

Had the freeze not been implemented, ASIC data reveals the adviser levy would have been $2,971 in 2020/21 and $3,021 in 2021/22.

…the levy freeze was implemented in the first place in order to “…provide financial advisers with the certainty they need over the next two years

According to the Government of the day, the levy freeze was implemented in the first place in order to “…provide financial advisers with the certainty they need over the next two years to deal with the impacts of Covid-19 and further regulatory reforms making their way through the Parliament, including the introduction of a Single Disciplinary Body and a Compensation Scheme of Last Resort.”

When the freeze was announced almost two years ago, the Coalition noted Treasury would be reviewing the ASIC Industry Funding Model while this temporary relief was in place, “…to ensure it remains fit for purpose in the longer term given structural changes taking place in the advice industry.”

The Treasury-led review of ASIC’s industry funding model has now concluded that the current model remains “…broadly appropriate” but that refinements could be made within the existing framework to improve the way regulatory costs are recovered. However, there has, as yet, been no reason offered by the regulator or by the Treasury as to why the (admittedly temporary) two-year freeze has not been extended.

This, then, is the context in which the two-year hiatus on increases to the ASIC adviser levy has been removed, and we’re keen to hear your thoughts on the merits of this decision. Tell us what you think and we’ll report back next week…



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4 COMMENTS

  1. The total lack of lack of equity and fairness in the ASIC levy is mind-boggling. Firstly it’s levied on those advisers still on the FAR. The banks have gone from advice, and with them their advisers. Those of us left are funding the bad guys who departed, money still in their kick.

    Then there’s the issue of any court declared reparations for bad advice. If and when, and it’s a big IF, the fines imposed by a court actually get paid, they go to Consolidated Revenue, not to a “pool” of fines to fund further actions, thus reducing our ASIC levy.

    And of course, all of this courtesy of your friendly Coalition government – “the party of small business”

    And yes, Mr Jones and Mr Chalmers will carry on this procedure. Never separate a politician from a revenue source, because he gets to fund all HIS favourite programs.

    Anyone expecting the FAAA to march on Parliament House?

  2. I saw a cartoon of a slave galley with the provision of 100 oars and only one slave rowing in the lower deck and 12 managers upstairs, sitting around a luxurious table with fine wine and food, concerned and alarmed that the productivity chart is showing the productivity arrow going down, with the spokesperson stating that, “all their great work of reducing costs, seems to have led to the ship grinding to a halt, which goes against their ethos of more Administrators and chiefs and less workers should surely be the answer to a great outcome.” The obvious solution therefore, should be to whip the worker remaining to increase productivity. The basis of charging an Adviser levy that rose with the declining number of Advisers brought on by bad policy, instigated by Government action that decimated the Industry and caused massive damage to all Australians, is akin to our slave Galley.

  3. Does anyone know how we advisers could organise a protest (peaceful of course)? Who in the cohort is intelligent enough to articulate to the public and mainstream media the fiasco of the last 15 years without enabling social justice warriors to spin the argument against us. The problem has always been the “Industry” is so fragmented, that someone in the cohort governed by FOFA & now defunct FASEA will have a differing opinion to me and approx. 50% of those left on the FAR, so it is very difficult to gain consensus on anything. My simplistic view is that while there were some “bad apples” in the industry, the reason for unwarranted government intervention was the GFC, where investments failed. Investments that had received ATO approval, followed by ASIC, then an AFSL investment committee which approved it for inclusion on the APL. Where was the adviser at fault here? But this is what triggered the Tsunami of regulation because the little guy had to take the fall as the banks and institutions are too big to fail and thus advisers were blamed and it is still happening as proven by this ASIC tax.

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