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Anti-bunching Measures
14.84. The current anti-bunching provisions are designed to cope with the problems of recipients of specific types of lumpy income. The Committee, elsewhere in this report, recommends that these provisions be retained and in some respects extended. For example, in Chapter 23 spreading provisions for capital gains are proposed, and in Chapter 21 there are recommendations for dealing with lump-sum receipts by an employee or self-employed person on retirement.
14.85. Anti-bunching measures need to be considered in conjunction with the averaging proposals and the income equalisation scheme to ensure that unwarranted tax savings do not flow to some taxpayers. The case for anti-bunching measures is weakened when averaging exists. However, it is traditional for primary producers to be eligible for both, and the Committee does not propose to alter this, though with the change in the method of averaging for primary producers it will be necessary to look at the present anti-bunching measures available to primary producers to ensure that there is no conflict.