The superannuation guarantee will not survive in the absence of its tax-preferred status, according to one of the men who helped former Treasurer Paul Keating devise Australia's current superannuation regime.
Former Treasury adviser and Federal department head Dr Don Russell told the Super Review Post-Retirement and Ageing Forum today that people were wrong to assume the superannuation guarantee would continue without continued tax concessions.
"No one is going to lock away money for 30 or 40 years in the absence of tax-preferred status," he said.
Russell said it was in these circumstances that the superannuation industry needed to identify the clear benefits of the tax-preferred status of superannuation and then convey that message with one voice.
He suggested that there needed to be an understanding that the Federal Treasury was not comfortable with tax preferment.
"Treasury never saw a tax expenditure it didn't hate," Russell said.
