Labor's proposed tax plan is not fair and it's not transparent. It fails the test of fairness because it will benefit taxpayers on higher incomes at the expense of those on lower incomes. Taxpayers with an effective average tax rate of 30% or over will receive the full benefit of franking credits while those on lower incomes will lose out.

It is accepted economic wisdom that savings should be taxed at a concessional rate otherwise people won't have an incentive to save and when they retire they become a heavier burden on the next generation of taxpayers.

Mr Shorten is meddling with the successful concept of imputation - that when company dividends are paid they are taxed at the individual's tax rate with full credit for the tax already paid by the company.

Under Labor's plan, anyone in retirement and living on their superannuation savings will now have every dollar of their income from dividends taxed at a rate of at least 30%.

While Bill Shorten says his plan to deny dividend tax refunds to super savers will mainly hit self-managed funds, in reality it will hit millions of members of the large industry and retail funds as well.