Seniors

Greenwich&rsquo;s newest luxury apartment development Akoya will offer facilities including a virtual golf simulator.

It is an eight-storey, 40-apartment seniors living development currently being built at 2 Greenwich Rd.&nbsp;

The project is being developed by the Alceon Group in partnership with NGS Super, which was established in 1988 as an industry super fund for people who work in education and community-focused organisations. Alceon is headed by Trevor Loewensohn and Phil Green.

[smartcode_project:default project_id=21877 project_image_fid=82705]

The 2140 sqm site was bought in late 2019 at $18 million after Northside Group&rsquo;s Greenwich clinic, the second hospital to open under entreprenuer Paul Ramsay in 1973, was closed in 2016.

Artazan Property Group has been appointed the project manager.

Designed by renowned Architects Marchese Partners, all its one, two and three-bedroom apartments will have studies.

The shared facilities include the Club Lounge, with its virtual golf driving range simulator.

There will also be a 10-seat cinema, private dining room, wine cellar and a library with fireplace.&nbsp;

There will be an on-site cafe/restaurant.

Apartment prices start from $1.35 million to $4.85 million through Alex Hillston and Tim Abbott at Ray White Lower North Shore Projects.

Greenwich’s newest luxury seniors apartment development Akoya will offer facilities including a virtual golf driving range simulator

jchancellor

Greenwich luxury seniors apartment block Akoya will have virtual golf simulator

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GUEST OBSERVER
The federal government could save about A$1 billion a year by winding back three tax breaks for older Australians that are unduly generous and have no sensible policy rationale, according to our new Grattan Institute report. 
Many seniors pay less than younger workers on the same income as a result of the Seniors and Pensioners Tax Offset (SAPTO) and a higher Medicare levy income threshold. They also get a higher rebate on their private health insurance than younger workers on the same income.
The tax-free thresholds for seniors and for younger people have diverged over the last 20 years. Seniors do not pay tax until they earn A$32,279 a year, whereas younger households have an effective tax-free threshold of A$20,542. 
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These outcomes are hard to justify. A retired couple pay about A$4000 a year in tax on earnings of A$70,000 a year from their assets (assuming assets outside of super worth A$1.4 million). Any extra income they draw from a super account is tax free. 
By contrast a working couple with both people earning the minimum wage would have the same income of $70,000 a year but pay tax of about A$7000. Unlike the retired couple, they probably don’t own their own home and have little chance of accumulating $1.4 million in assets, or much super savings, or owning their home before they retire. 
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These age-based tax breaks help to explain why the proportion of seniors paying tax has almost halved in the last 20 years. Those over 65 pay less tax per household in real terms than seniors did 20 years ago, despite their rising incomes and workforce participation rates. 
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Age-based tax breaks are badly designed to any justifiable purposes such as increasing workforce participation or preserving adequate retirement incomes for poorer Australians. Tapers that withdraw the offsets for those with higher incomes lead to the tax breaks effectively increase marginal tax rates for many people. And of seniors who lodge a tax return, none of the benefits go to the bottom 40%. 
Some may argue that the tax breaks are a fair reward for a lifetime of paying tax. But large tax breaks for seniors are in fact a relatively new invention not provided to previous generations. 
And the current generation of seniors also receive much more than their predecessors from government spending, particularly on health. Senior households on average receive A$32,000 a year from government more than they contribute in income and sales taxes. In 2004 they only took out about A$22,000 a year. For now, federal budget deficits are funding the difference. 
Very little justification was provided for these tax breaks when they were introduced. But they correlate with electoral dynamics shifting decisively in favour of older voters. From 1995 to 2015, the proportion of eligible voters aged 55 and over grew from 27% to 34%. Because younger Australians enrol less, those aged 55 and over are now 38% of enrolled voters. 
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These tax breaks might have been affordable when they were introduced 15 years ago, and budgets moved into surplus. But the federal government has been running large budget deficits for 8 years in a row. It must make tough saving and spending decisions to avoid handing an unsustainable bill to future generations. Our report proposes winding back SAPTO and the higher Medicare levy threshold. Self-funded retirees should not qualify for SAPTO. Seniors with enough private income that they do not qualify for a full Age Pension should pay some income tax.
The proposed changes are fair. Seniors would pay either the same or less tax than younger Australians. They would have little effect on the 40% of seniors who receive a full Age Pension. They would mostly affect seniors who are wealthy enough to receive no pension or just a part pension. 
These changes would save the federal budget about A$700 million a year. Reducing the private health insurance rebate so that seniors get the same rebate as younger Australians would save another A$250 million.
To put that A$1 billion of budget repair in context, the government’s recent omnibus bill improved the bottom line by A$2 billion a year, and the super package by less than A$1 billion. With deficits running at about A$40 billion a year, there is a long way to go, and reforming age-based tax breaks would help.
John Daley is chief executive officer, Grattan Institute and can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/john-daley-1870" target="_blank">here</a>.
Brendan Coates is fellow, Grattan Institute and can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/brendan-coates-154644" target="_blank">here</a>.
William Young is associate, Grattan Institute, and can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/william-young-260984" target="_blank">here</a>.
All are authors for The Conversation.
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jchancellor-FAypfDUnLy

Why special tax breaks for seniors should go

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The Senate committee on housing affordability reports recommends that the Federal government investigate new policy settings to address barriers to downsizing by retirees, including schemes along the lines of the Housing Help for Seniors pilot. 
The report noted many older people would prefer to move out of the family home and into more appropriate accommodation, but financial and other barriers prevented them from doing so.
While submissions generally talked about 'downsizing', the committee noted policy discourse might benefit from reframing the issue to be about 'rightsizing'.
The committee argued against inclusion of the family home in the aged pension assets test given the attachment many people have to their home and the benefits of allowing people to age in place. 
But they noted "it may be that the exemption of the family home from the aged pension means test encourages some over investment in housing and, in some cases, discourages people from moving to accommodation better suited to their needs.
"However, improved housing affordability achieved through policy which pressures older Australians to sell their homes to access capital, potentially disrupting their ties to family, friends and community, would be a hollow achievement."
The committee believed a better approach would be to explore innovative and affordable policies that allow retirees to downsize (or 'rightsize') when they wish or require to do so, without the sale proceeds necessarily jeopardising their pension eligibility.
"Programs such as the Housing Help for Seniors program, announced by the former government in the 2013–14 Budget but abandoned by the current government in the 2014–15 Budget before it was legislated, would be worth exploring in this regard," the report noted.
In the 2013–14 Budget the then Labor government announced its intention to implement the Housing Help for Seniors pilot program, with a commencement date of 1 July 2014.
The report noted had the pilot been implemented, it would have allowed a homeowner who had lived in their home for at least 25 years to sell their home and have at least 80% of the proceeds from the sale of the home (that is, the sale price less any valid encumbrance such as a mortgage, and less the purchase price of the new home), up to a cap of $200,000, quarantined in a special account so that it was not considered as part of the aged pension asset test.
The money in the account plus any interest earned would have been exempt from the asset test for up to ten years, providing there were no withdrawals during the life of the account. 
The exemption was to be available to people assessed as home owners who moved into a retirement village or a granny flat, but would not have been available to people moving into residential aged care.
The program, according to the budget papers, would have cost $112.4 million over the forward estimates period.
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