Sensible Ideas on Cutting Fed Govt Expensiture from Scott Phillips from Motley Fool

True. GST is efficient but is criticised for being regressive.

 

What Is a Straw Man Argument?

 

I'm only contending what you've said, you quite clearly have said remove concessional caps altogether and that all contributions should be tax free. Concessional caps are all that stop excessive tax deductible contributions and the tax on them going in is all that stops that side of the system from being a complete and utter blackhole of tax free money. For super income to then pay no tax on top of that would make the system wide open for exploitation by the immensely wealthy, they'd be the ones best positioned to shift basically every cent they earn into non-taxed super while getting excessive deductions.

If that's not what you're saying then by all means explain your position.

I can't see any basis for removing taxation in super funds, especially on higher income earners (I could see a point in removing tax on low income earners so they have an incentive to have money in Super) or increasing or removing the cap limits (which only hold back the wealthy). It's supposed to be a pension system, not a way for the wealthy to legally avoid tax, or at least that's what I think it's supposed to be, in it's current form it more a way for the wealthy to avoid tax than a pension replacement and your proposed changes, at least as you wrote them, would just further emphasise this.

 

I can see a pretty reasonable value in not having tax taken at the point of entry, enabling every Australian to grow their super balances earlier through an increased base. Likewise a long tail revenue source when super is used at pension phase, so tax revenue grows when health expenditure is most likely to heavily increase.

Best to setup a system that works for most of Australians, than worry about 0.01% of the population taking advantage of it. (like they dont already?)

If concerned about it being used as a funnel to inheritence (it already can), just put a transfer tax at point of inheritence. Effectively a death tax, but contained within super only.

 

I personally don't see why people's homes should be excluded from assets for assessing old age pensions.