SOME of Greater Shepparton’s 19,000 aged pensioners may well be feeling the heat from Centrelink over new income reporting requirements.
Late last year, the Combined pensioners and Superanuate Association (CPSA) started receiving complaints from pensioners about a letter or text message they received from Centrelink telling them to report their income every fortnight.
From December 2020, new income reporting arrangements apply to all social security payments. These arrangements are designed mainly for employment income, but also apply to income like rent from an investment property, foreign pensions and any other income that is not deemed income.
Previously, pensioners didn’t need to report fortnightly if their non-deemed income was steady. Now they do.
Centrelink being Centrelink, it can’t be polite about it. It demands and threatens pensioners their pension will be stopped if they don’t report on time. Every fortnight. If you forget, your next pension payment doesn’t arrive until you have made your report.
It’s been a shock to pensioners. Reporting can also be done online, but the same threat of withholding pension payments applies.
CPSA received similar reports from pensioners with superannuation pensions. Details had to be reported only once, not fortnightly, but again this requirement was framed as a demand and backed-up by a threat of stopping pension payments.
One pensioner reported that they received a letter two days before Christmas, saying: If you do not give us this information by 6
January 2021, your payment may be stopped.
The Robodebt debacle last year seems to have not had any impact on the way they do business?
