New NSW tax: Interment Services Levy in force from July 1
The NSW Government has been accused of breaking an election promise of not introducing any new taxes, with the Opposition warning a new levy will be passed straight onto suffering families.
NSW
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The NSW Government has been accused of breaking an election promise of not introducing any new taxes, with the Opposition warning a new levy on cremations and burials will be passed straight onto suffering families.
Regional councils have also said they’ll be left to cover the cost of administrating the new Interment Services Levy, which comes into effect on July 1 and will charge operators $41 per cremation, $63 per ash interment, and $156 per burial.
The NSW Government said it had introduced the new levy to help fund increased powers for the cemeteries watchdog, in a bid to weed out rogue operators and prevent horror stories facing grieving families.
NSW Nationals leader Dugald Saunders said it was a “proposed tax that will hit families when they are at their most vulnerable and grieving for their loved ones”.
Mr Saunders referred back to a statement from then-Opposition leader Chris Minns during last year’s election campaign, when he told media: “We’re not proposing any tax increases at all in this election campaign”.
“This is yet another broken promise from a Premier who, during the election campaign, said there would be no new taxes under his Labor Government,” Mr Saunders said.
“Now what we are seeing is exactly the opposite.”
Clarence MP Richie Williamson said his local council on the NSW north coast had raised concerns with him over the cost of administrating the new levy.
“Our councils are understandably frustrated by the utter lack of consultation and our communities deserve better,” he said.
“Families are already suffering through a cost-of-living crisis and now this is another expense they will have to bear.”
Horror stories compiled by the cemeteries watchdog include a case in 2019 where a cemetery operator knocked down multiple headstones, citing public safety reasons, but didn’t notify family members beforehand.
The Telegraph has previously reported other instances, including when the family of a young child who had been killed in an accident years before found someone else had been buried next to their child.
The cemetery operator, relying on old records, buried a different person in one of the plots next to the child’s grave – despite the family previously purchasing the plots.
A spokesman for Lands Minister Steve Kamper said the charge wasn’t a new levy, it was just being expanded beyond Crown cemeteries to all cemetery operators, while multiple rounds of consultation had been held.
“For years, we have seen horror story after horror story, family after family, report after report tell us we need to fix the long-running crisis in NSW cemeteries and crematoria,” he said.
“The former Government received these reports, heard these stories and they sat on their hands and did nothing.”
“We need a strong cop on the beat, for too long customers have been left unprotected at a time when they are most vulnerable.”
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