Coalition finance spokesperson Andrew Robb is more worried about playing politics than supporting a competitive taxation regime for managed investment trusts (MITs), said Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury.
In an opinion piece today, Mr Robb criticised changes to the withholding tax regime for MITs announced in the 2012-13 Budget.
"Mr Robb has demonstrated his breathtaking hypocrisy on the issue of withholding tax for managed investment trusts," said Mr Bradbury.
"When Mr Robb was last in Government, the rate of withholding tax was double the rate proposed in the Budget. It took a Labor Government to slash the Howard Government's high withholding tax rate and encourage investment in Australia.
"The Gillard Government has made sure that the 15 per cent withholding tax for managed investment trusts continues to make us competitive with the rates that apply in other countries and is still half the rate it was when we came to office in 2007."
In 2007, when Labor first proposed cutting the rate in half, from 30 per cent to 15 per cent, then-Treasurer Peter Costello called it 'a tax cut for foreigners':
Apparently [Labor] would rather give tax relief to foreigners than to Australians and I think that is a misguided priority.
[10 May 2007]
"The Coalition has made it clear that if they had their way, the 30 per cent withholding tax rate would never have been reduced in the first place and they would have rolled the shutters down on foreign investment.
"Mr Robb and his colleagues should stop talking the Australian economy down and get on board with the Gillard Government's positive agenda to attract investment."