asparnique
2010-03-17 09:07:02 UTC
Blatant discrimination by the Australian Government
towards Australians living abroad !!
!! PLEASE READ !! !! PLEASE READ !! !! PLEASE READ !!
If you are interested to find out how NOT all Australian citizens are equal
before the law, or just wondering what happens in certain situations if you
decide to work overseas because of opportunities arising to further your
career, please read on . this is extraordinary by any standards !
Please consider this brief summary of our history that brought us to
Australia in the early eighties. Our family defected from a communist regime
of an eastern block country (no longer a regime in existence since 1989),
this while I was posted as a government official, the Trade Commissioner in
Indonesia, with the assistance of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. Because
of this action, considered by the regime of the times as a form of treason,
I was subsequently sentenced in absentia to 7 years in prison and all our
remaining personal property was immediately confiscated, since under the
existing
communist laws of the time no citizen of that regime had the right to leave
or to return to his own country of origin, contrary to the Universal
Declaration of
Human Rights to which the country was obviously not a signatory to.
We arrived in Melbourne in October 1980 and after 9 months we both started
to work, my wife at the age of 37 years and I at the age of 47 years,
continuing to do so for the following 25 years up to the time of our
retirement. Three years after our arrival in Melbourne we did what most
aspiring middle-class family was doing then, built our own house in the
suburb of Mt. Waverley, and in 1983 thanks to our application for
citizenship having being granted, we became happily Australian Citizens
together with our children.
While my wife was working I worked briefly as a manager and a sales
representative until 1986, in which year I started my own business, an
import & distribution company based in Melbourne. Both my wife and I
worked very hard to succeed in a new country with very little accumulated
wealth, basically a new life, all from scratch. I remember working even more
that 12 hours a day, most of the times without vacation, and making on
average 80 000 km a year on the road in order to visit my emerging clientele
in Victoria. Slowly I built that business until I was able to start
employing staff and starting from 1993 and later on, in 2003, our small
family business grew and expanded to all of Australia. My wife later joined
me till the time of the sale of the business which happened about five years
ago.
As my business developed I was able to take advantage of some changes to
local laws in the early 90s we were able to build a villa unit on the
remaining land of my property. When the real estate prices fell in the early
1990s I was able to purchase a warehouse both to store the company stock,
and as a form of investment for later on. This was not at all uncommon and
many ordinary Australians strived for the same goals in the land of
opportunities.
Australia was going through both economic and cultural changes in many ways,
changing from many points of view, to the better and for the worse as some
would say. We all enjoyed being Australians, proud of being Aussies. Of
course during this period it was difficult, as you can imagine, to not have
experienced some form of prejudice from certain elements of Australian
society - as most immigrant tend to experience from time to time in
Australia, to a lesser or greater extent, and with greater or lesser impact
on their lives. It was unfortunate that it was our next door neighbours
that showed the most prejudice and xenophobia during this time.
The government took some measures to improve the industrial relations which
changed allot the way business was done. Also the government took the
decision to
change the way the pension is provided to aged people by applying an "asset
test". At that time and even today I considered this as being a progressive
social measure to benefit the people most in need, whilst reducing the
economic footprint on the Australian welfare system. As far as we are
concern we are glad to give up our yearly pension of $26 338 which we would
have had if we had passed the income and asset tests, since we have worked
hard and were lucky to have acquired enough assets and income for retirement
after we eventually sold our business. At that time I was in my seventies
and my wife in her sixties, and we decided to stop working and moving to
Europe were we have 99% of our relatives, with only our daughter remaining
in Australia to this day.
Now here comes the crunch ! To our surprise when we lodged our tax returns
for the financial year ending 30 June 2009, our income tax liability more
than doubled because, according to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), we
have been deemed to be non-residents of Australia for income tax purposes,
and that NO tax-free threshold is available anymore to non-residents.
We contested this information because, besides a no tax-free threshold, we
have been charged a flat tax rate of 30% for our small income earned in
Australia from our three properties, totalling no more than $24 500, instead
of the usual 15% being the tax all Australian citizens pay for their income
in that particular tax bracket, above the $7000 threshold ! In doing so the
ATO have applied "The Tax Assessment Act of 1936 and 1997" which
effectively discriminates against those Australian citizens who choose to
move their residency to another country, including their country of birth
or any other. I cannot help seeing this blatantly in complete breach of the
Australia's commitment to uphold the human rights set out in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), to which Australia is a signatory to.
If you have a look at this Act you will be surprised to find out that there
is no mention of the Australian Citizens but only of "residents" or
"no-residents". Of course, in 1936 the majority of all the Australian
inhabitants were British subjects and it was only in 1948 when the
Australian Citizenship Act was approved by the Parliament. In fact even the
Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act adopted on the 9th of July 1900
does not mentions even once the world "citizen" or "citizenship", and as you
might know, a "Bill of Rights" was never adopted by an Australian
Parliament. In fact I am sure Australia is the only country from OECD that
does not have a "Bill of Rights". In our opinion the Tax Assessment Acts
1936 and 1997 do not respect the fundamental principle of the justice that
states that : all citizens are equal before the law, without privileges or
discrimination. Rather it is a blatantly discriminatory application of a law
designed to cause the loss of money, in comparison to those considered
Australian residents, specifically targeting those who decide to retire and
move residency to another country other than Australia !
This discrimination is difficult to understand coming from a country such as
Australia which is a well established and recognized democracy throughout
the world, as well as one of the eight countries involved in drafting "The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights". In 1948 when Dr. H.V. Evatt, the
head of the Australia's delegation became President of UN General Assembly -
that same year he oversaw the adoption of this Universal Declaration, as
clearly outlined on Wikipedia.com etc.
I draw your attention to the article 7 of this Declaration which says "All
are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to
equal protection of the law".
Please also read article 13 of this same Declaration stating that "(1)
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the
borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country,
including their own, and to return to their country".
I mentioned only 2 of the articles of the Declaration but there are more
similar articles in it. I would like propose to you this question to
consider: in your opinion, was the Australian authority really sincere, when
it fought for the adoption of "The Universal Declaration of Human Right", or
when in effect, it adopted an Act that effectively discriminates
particularly and blatantly against those Australian citizens who decide to
move their residency to another country, and all this, at no expense or
economic burden to the Australian government ?
As I mentioned before we immigrated to Australia in 1980 with 2 children and
few personal belongings, no money, effectively fleeing a repressive
communist regime, applying to the Australia's embassy for political asylum
as political refugees. As punishment for having chosen to live in a free
country, the communist regime of that time confiscated ALL of our personal
belongings, automatically sentenced me to 7 years prison in absentia and
officially labelled us traitors to their country!
If I may draw an analogy between this cruel action and the current ATO
position, there is a substantial similarity between the two: in both cases
both authorities chose to punish their citizens simply for having chosen to
live in another country, and this move, at no costs to them! I stress this
point, as it is clearly the case that we are no longer in a position to
benefit from the Australian welfare state, its Medicare system or any other
benefits citizens would be entitled to if living and residing in Australia.
In fact, our economic and ecological footprint (which I might add has always
been insignificantly small) on the Australian welfare state has reduced to
ZERO since we no longer live in Australia ! It would appear, the only
difference being, that the communist regime of the times took everything
from us within a few days, whilst the ATO prefers to bleed our hard earned
pension
more slowly, over the next few years through discriminatory income tax,
superannuation fund and capital gain tax measures designed to punish those
retired Australian citizens that leave Australia at no cost or burden to
them !
We paid more than 25 years worth of taxes in Australia, but have no
government pension, we save Australia at least $26 338 annually each, we pay
our own medical expenses in the country residing in, because Australia does
not provide us with any support in this regard. Australia also forbids us to
have a superannuation fund even if they do not provide us with a pension,
and also subjects our few properties, for which we failed their assets
tests, to capital gain tax, also a particular tax not applicable to retired
Australian citizens living in Australia.
We are currently writing more letters to various organization and bodies to
make people more aware of the way things work in Australia. Given the influx
of migrants into Australia since the Second World War, more and more cases
such as ours will arise, and I might add, I am sure we are not the only ones
in this situation.
For this reason I write this letter so as to better inform yourself, but
also ask you to make contact with us should you find yourself in a similar
situation and/or perhaps have resolved a similar situation by some means. I
am particularly am interested to hear the opinions of British citizens who
have lived in Australia, and may have returned later on back to the UK, and
may have one or two properties rented in Australia which is considered as
income making activity and subject to income tax assessment in Australia
etc.
!! Many thanks for having read our letter, hoping this may better inform all
those considering a similar move !!
towards Australians living abroad !!
!! PLEASE READ !! !! PLEASE READ !! !! PLEASE READ !!
If you are interested to find out how NOT all Australian citizens are equal
before the law, or just wondering what happens in certain situations if you
decide to work overseas because of opportunities arising to further your
career, please read on . this is extraordinary by any standards !
Please consider this brief summary of our history that brought us to
Australia in the early eighties. Our family defected from a communist regime
of an eastern block country (no longer a regime in existence since 1989),
this while I was posted as a government official, the Trade Commissioner in
Indonesia, with the assistance of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. Because
of this action, considered by the regime of the times as a form of treason,
I was subsequently sentenced in absentia to 7 years in prison and all our
remaining personal property was immediately confiscated, since under the
existing
communist laws of the time no citizen of that regime had the right to leave
or to return to his own country of origin, contrary to the Universal
Declaration of
Human Rights to which the country was obviously not a signatory to.
We arrived in Melbourne in October 1980 and after 9 months we both started
to work, my wife at the age of 37 years and I at the age of 47 years,
continuing to do so for the following 25 years up to the time of our
retirement. Three years after our arrival in Melbourne we did what most
aspiring middle-class family was doing then, built our own house in the
suburb of Mt. Waverley, and in 1983 thanks to our application for
citizenship having being granted, we became happily Australian Citizens
together with our children.
While my wife was working I worked briefly as a manager and a sales
representative until 1986, in which year I started my own business, an
import & distribution company based in Melbourne. Both my wife and I
worked very hard to succeed in a new country with very little accumulated
wealth, basically a new life, all from scratch. I remember working even more
that 12 hours a day, most of the times without vacation, and making on
average 80 000 km a year on the road in order to visit my emerging clientele
in Victoria. Slowly I built that business until I was able to start
employing staff and starting from 1993 and later on, in 2003, our small
family business grew and expanded to all of Australia. My wife later joined
me till the time of the sale of the business which happened about five years
ago.
As my business developed I was able to take advantage of some changes to
local laws in the early 90s we were able to build a villa unit on the
remaining land of my property. When the real estate prices fell in the early
1990s I was able to purchase a warehouse both to store the company stock,
and as a form of investment for later on. This was not at all uncommon and
many ordinary Australians strived for the same goals in the land of
opportunities.
Australia was going through both economic and cultural changes in many ways,
changing from many points of view, to the better and for the worse as some
would say. We all enjoyed being Australians, proud of being Aussies. Of
course during this period it was difficult, as you can imagine, to not have
experienced some form of prejudice from certain elements of Australian
society - as most immigrant tend to experience from time to time in
Australia, to a lesser or greater extent, and with greater or lesser impact
on their lives. It was unfortunate that it was our next door neighbours
that showed the most prejudice and xenophobia during this time.
The government took some measures to improve the industrial relations which
changed allot the way business was done. Also the government took the
decision to
change the way the pension is provided to aged people by applying an "asset
test". At that time and even today I considered this as being a progressive
social measure to benefit the people most in need, whilst reducing the
economic footprint on the Australian welfare system. As far as we are
concern we are glad to give up our yearly pension of $26 338 which we would
have had if we had passed the income and asset tests, since we have worked
hard and were lucky to have acquired enough assets and income for retirement
after we eventually sold our business. At that time I was in my seventies
and my wife in her sixties, and we decided to stop working and moving to
Europe were we have 99% of our relatives, with only our daughter remaining
in Australia to this day.
Now here comes the crunch ! To our surprise when we lodged our tax returns
for the financial year ending 30 June 2009, our income tax liability more
than doubled because, according to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), we
have been deemed to be non-residents of Australia for income tax purposes,
and that NO tax-free threshold is available anymore to non-residents.
We contested this information because, besides a no tax-free threshold, we
have been charged a flat tax rate of 30% for our small income earned in
Australia from our three properties, totalling no more than $24 500, instead
of the usual 15% being the tax all Australian citizens pay for their income
in that particular tax bracket, above the $7000 threshold ! In doing so the
ATO have applied "The Tax Assessment Act of 1936 and 1997" which
effectively discriminates against those Australian citizens who choose to
move their residency to another country, including their country of birth
or any other. I cannot help seeing this blatantly in complete breach of the
Australia's commitment to uphold the human rights set out in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), to which Australia is a signatory to.
If you have a look at this Act you will be surprised to find out that there
is no mention of the Australian Citizens but only of "residents" or
"no-residents". Of course, in 1936 the majority of all the Australian
inhabitants were British subjects and it was only in 1948 when the
Australian Citizenship Act was approved by the Parliament. In fact even the
Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act adopted on the 9th of July 1900
does not mentions even once the world "citizen" or "citizenship", and as you
might know, a "Bill of Rights" was never adopted by an Australian
Parliament. In fact I am sure Australia is the only country from OECD that
does not have a "Bill of Rights". In our opinion the Tax Assessment Acts
1936 and 1997 do not respect the fundamental principle of the justice that
states that : all citizens are equal before the law, without privileges or
discrimination. Rather it is a blatantly discriminatory application of a law
designed to cause the loss of money, in comparison to those considered
Australian residents, specifically targeting those who decide to retire and
move residency to another country other than Australia !
This discrimination is difficult to understand coming from a country such as
Australia which is a well established and recognized democracy throughout
the world, as well as one of the eight countries involved in drafting "The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights". In 1948 when Dr. H.V. Evatt, the
head of the Australia's delegation became President of UN General Assembly -
that same year he oversaw the adoption of this Universal Declaration, as
clearly outlined on Wikipedia.com etc.
I draw your attention to the article 7 of this Declaration which says "All
are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to
equal protection of the law".
Please also read article 13 of this same Declaration stating that "(1)
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the
borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country,
including their own, and to return to their country".
I mentioned only 2 of the articles of the Declaration but there are more
similar articles in it. I would like propose to you this question to
consider: in your opinion, was the Australian authority really sincere, when
it fought for the adoption of "The Universal Declaration of Human Right", or
when in effect, it adopted an Act that effectively discriminates
particularly and blatantly against those Australian citizens who decide to
move their residency to another country, and all this, at no expense or
economic burden to the Australian government ?
As I mentioned before we immigrated to Australia in 1980 with 2 children and
few personal belongings, no money, effectively fleeing a repressive
communist regime, applying to the Australia's embassy for political asylum
as political refugees. As punishment for having chosen to live in a free
country, the communist regime of that time confiscated ALL of our personal
belongings, automatically sentenced me to 7 years prison in absentia and
officially labelled us traitors to their country!
If I may draw an analogy between this cruel action and the current ATO
position, there is a substantial similarity between the two: in both cases
both authorities chose to punish their citizens simply for having chosen to
live in another country, and this move, at no costs to them! I stress this
point, as it is clearly the case that we are no longer in a position to
benefit from the Australian welfare state, its Medicare system or any other
benefits citizens would be entitled to if living and residing in Australia.
In fact, our economic and ecological footprint (which I might add has always
been insignificantly small) on the Australian welfare state has reduced to
ZERO since we no longer live in Australia ! It would appear, the only
difference being, that the communist regime of the times took everything
from us within a few days, whilst the ATO prefers to bleed our hard earned
pension
more slowly, over the next few years through discriminatory income tax,
superannuation fund and capital gain tax measures designed to punish those
retired Australian citizens that leave Australia at no cost or burden to
them !
We paid more than 25 years worth of taxes in Australia, but have no
government pension, we save Australia at least $26 338 annually each, we pay
our own medical expenses in the country residing in, because Australia does
not provide us with any support in this regard. Australia also forbids us to
have a superannuation fund even if they do not provide us with a pension,
and also subjects our few properties, for which we failed their assets
tests, to capital gain tax, also a particular tax not applicable to retired
Australian citizens living in Australia.
We are currently writing more letters to various organization and bodies to
make people more aware of the way things work in Australia. Given the influx
of migrants into Australia since the Second World War, more and more cases
such as ours will arise, and I might add, I am sure we are not the only ones
in this situation.
For this reason I write this letter so as to better inform yourself, but
also ask you to make contact with us should you find yourself in a similar
situation and/or perhaps have resolved a similar situation by some means. I
am particularly am interested to hear the opinions of British citizens who
have lived in Australia, and may have returned later on back to the UK, and
may have one or two properties rented in Australia which is considered as
income making activity and subject to income tax assessment in Australia
etc.
!! Many thanks for having read our letter, hoping this may better inform all
those considering a similar move !!