{"id":4675,"date":"2016-10-05T19:29:47","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T19:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=4675"},"modified":"2018-03-19T02:28:34","modified_gmt":"2018-03-18T15:28:34","slug":"changes-to-age-pension-assets-test-from-january-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=4675","title":{"rendered":"Changes to Age Pension assets test from January 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The government&#8217;s changes to the Age Pension could affect your ability to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amp.com.au\/personal\/super-and-retirement\/education\/prepare-to-retire\/planning\">plan for a comfortable retirement<\/a>.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Recent reports \u00a0suggest that more than 300,000 Age Pensioners will have at least part of their pension cut, with just under 100,000 of these people losing all Age Pension entitlements, taking effect from January 2017.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Age Pension and assets test explained<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Age Pension provides income support and access to a range of concessions for eligible older Australians. Retirees who are currently aged 65 or over, and who satisfy income and assets tests and other requirements, can receive a full or part pension.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, the government introduced changes to the Age Pension\u2019s assets test thresholds which will take effect from 1 January 2017. The thresholds indicate the value of the assets you can own (excluding your home) before you lose your eligibility for the Age Pension.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>What will change?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From 1 January 2017, some people will benefit and others will be worse off. Around 50,000 Australians are expected to be better off under the government\u2019s changes and receive the <strong>full pension<\/strong>. Approximately 120,000 <strong>part-pensioners<\/strong> are likely to add around $30 per fortnight to their wallet.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Full pension, home owners <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you own a home, the new assets thresholds will allow you to hold assessable assets up to $250,000 (singles) and $375,000 (couples) without impacting your full-pension entitlements.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Full pension, non-home owners<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The new assets thresholds for those who don\u2019t own a home will be $450,000 (singles) and $575,000 (couples).<\/p>\n<p><strong>The upside of losing<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><br \/>\nPeople who do lose their pensions in 2017 will automatically be entitled to receive a Commonwealth senior\u2019s health card or a low income health card. These cards will provide access to Medicare bulk billing and less expensive pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>If you\u2019re on a part pension what will happen? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From 1 January 2017, around 91,000 <strong>part-pensioners<\/strong> will lose their Age Pension and about 235,000 <strong>part-pensioners<\/strong>\u2019 payments will be reduced.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Part pension, home owners<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Couples who are homeowners will not receive the pension when their assets reach $823,000 in value. Single homeowners will stop receiving the pension when they have more than $547,000 in assets.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Part pension, non-home owners<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Singles who don\u2019t own a home won\u2019t qualify for the pension if assets total $747,000. And couples will lose pension entitlements after they\u2019ve accumulated more than $1 million in assets. <strong>(AMP)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The government&#8217;s changes to the Age Pension could affect your ability to plan for a comfortable retirement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,49,61],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4795,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4675\/revisions\/4795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}