Gina Rinehart responds to $544m super rumours
It can be hard being rich. Sometimes you have to deny you have $544 million in your super, and other times you have your spokesperson do it for you.
The internet has been hard at work trying to guess whose name is attached to the staggering $544m superannuation fund reported and thrust to viral heights by a graph-wielding tweet.
The account holder’s name cannot be revealed as it is protected under the Taxation Administration Act of 1953, but the internet couldn’t be stopped from compiling a list of guesses, with Gina Rinehart taking the number one spot.
The executive chair of Hancock Prospecting is Australia’s richest person, so it wasn’t a stretch for the internet to circle back to her again and again.
However, it appears that people may have to get their magnifying glasses back out, and slap on their detective badges, as Rinehart’s spokesperson has reached out to tell news.com.au that the mining magnate is not the account holder of Australia’s richest superannuation fund.
Simply put, they could “confirm that Mrs Rinehart is not the person with that $544 million super balance.”
No further detail was provided, prompting some to question if the statement was just to throw them off the scent, though most were happy to take it at face value.
They didn’t have much sympathy for the super rich Rinehart either way, despite the certainty that the government’s announced superannuation changes will impact her accounts.
Under the changes, “Australians with over $3m in their super accounts have their concessional tax rate doubled - from 15 per cent to 30 per cent - and won’t be effective until around 2025-26.”
Only 0.5% of Australians are set to be impacted, leaving a small pool of only 88,000 people to focus on while trying to figure out the $544m mystery. While the likes of Clive Palmer and Kerry Stokes seem quite likely, some have come to believe that the account holder may in fact be owned by someone in an opposing political party, and perhaps even one of the most vocally opposed.
And at the end of the day, the general public don’t seem too fazed about it all - though it would be nice to get to the bottom of the account - as the average Australian can only dream of having the $3m threshold in their super fund anyway.
And luckily for us all, you can’t tax a dream (yet).
Images: Getty