Well $3M sounds like a lot now, but I hope they index it, because the way inflation and money printing is going, that will be worth about $3.50 in a decade or two, so everyone will be caught by it.
For a comfortable retirement in 2026, the amount required is ~$800K (this is already on the high end).
Assuming a consistent worst-case inflation rate of 4% every year (double the RBA target), it would take 25 years to hit $2m - let alone the $3m+ in question here.
There is a very small, very wealthy cohort with $3m+ in superannuation savings - and you, statistically speaking, aren’t part of it.
In terms of dollar values, I worry about 2 things:
the official CPI figures don’t track to the actual cost of living, eg mortgages aren’t included
the issue of money/government debt is uncontrolled
Maybe if it was set as the equivalent of $3M in gold as at 12 March 2026 I’d be OK…
PS:800k might be the comfortable today, but there have been multiple times the share market etc has halved, or even lost 90% of it’s value. Unless you have 2x to 10x 800k, and have a living portion in liquid assets, you are not immune.
As an alternate POV, if somebody had $5M in super today, would we be OK with no extra tax if the markets crashed 50% and that meant their super was only worth $2.5M now? And the $3M fatcat who only held shares in his dodgy cousin’s company that tanked, some NFTs, and cryptocurrency was now worth $100k?
You say this about the people that pay the majority of all income taxes already lol. When did this commie “successful people should be penalised more and more for being successful!” ideology become so popular in Australia?
No amount of extra tax from the wealthy is going to result in reduced taxes for everyone else. The wealthy and the high earners already pay almost all of the tax. All it’s going to do is end up in more government waste and corruption.
Also……why do they need to be taxed more? Are they using more government services than everyone else? Do they get special roads that only they get to drive on?
When did this commie “successful people should be penalised more and more for being successful!” ideology become so popular in Australia?
The commie perspective is that the owning class (not the same as having a lot of money or “being successful”!) gain profit off the backs of workers, and therefore we don’t get our fair share of the value we produce. High taxation isn’t a commie idea, it’s a social democrat (capitalist) idea to try and moderate the broken system that lets the boards of mining giants sit in billionaire luxury while selling the soil beneath our feet for themselves.
But that’s nitpicking the premise. A better answer to your question:
In 1951, the top marginal tax rate for incomes above £10,000 (equivalent to $425,000 today) was 75 per cent. From 1955 until the mid-1980s the top marginal tax rate was 67 per cent.
That entire perspective is absurd joke. People being paid to do their job are getting what they’re owed. If they want to start a business they can go ahead and do it and reap the rewards……or the losses. That’s the risk.
People being paid to do their job are getting what they’re owed.
Is this claiming that the amount someone deserves is determined by their contract? That’s an odd assumption, even if it’s a normalised one.
We live under a system where millions of people don’t have, and can’t get, the capital (or expertise) needed to start their own legal profitable business, and effectively must resort to selling themselves to earn a living wage. And even if that wasnt the case, we obviously can’t all run individual businesses in this system without being outcompeted and being forced back into proletarianisation.
Most of the population being workers rather than business owners isn’t some personal decision, it’s a basic premise of capitalism.
And there isn’t much power a worker has to influence what salaries are being offered on the market. The business owner sets the wage, and if there are enough unemployed and underemployed people looking for jobs to avoid homelessness, business owners collectively decide how low they can all go (and luckily there’s a minimum wage so they can’t just race to the bottom livable wage). So there’s no material reason to assume that a person only deserves the amount their salary is - it’s not based on how useful a worker is, just on how low a business owner can offer.
Let’s take an extreme example to illustrate: slave labour. Or let’s dial it back: prison labour - Canberra Times reports prisoners get paid about $2 an hour for their labour, AusPrisons.com lists weekly rates the same ballpark. I got paid far more as a teen performing menial minimum wage factory work. Clearly these people are being paid so low because its legal to do so and because they’re not in a good position to decline such abysmal offers. Not because their labour isn’t valuable, not because their work isn’t worth more, not because the business owner is taking more risk. It’s because they’re vulnerable employees and they can be exploited more for profit.
As a side note:
People being paid to do their job are getting what they’re owed
I have been underpayed thousands of dollars by multiple jobs. So I’m not even getting paid what I’m legally owed until I or the union point out the wage theft.
What’s your suggestion? Tax low income more? People of wealth have a significant ability to manipulate and reduce tax bills. I don’t think payroll tax is the answer, but taxing wealth, assets and corporations is.
No, taxing wealth and assets isn’t the answer. People shouldn’t be punished simply for being successful and owning things.
Your last point is - making corporations actually pay taxes. No more Apple Australia buying iPhones from Apple Scotland for the exact same price they sell them to customers for, meaning no profit in Australia, for example. No more mining giants paying nothing to literally sell the ground out from under us.
Income tax should be abolished, and instead make it spending/usage based. Spend more pay more.
The only thing I agree with “taxing the rich” for is fines - they should be percentage based. $1000 for your passenger having their seatbelt slightly off hurts someone earning $60k a lot more than it hurts someone earning $600k.
It’s not punishment for being wealthy, it’s giving back to the community that helps you live in luxury. The taxes won’t send them broke, or make a big dent in their savings.
And I agree with the fines. Should be a minimum plus a percentage of your last financial year’s income.
Well $3M sounds like a lot now, but I hope they index it, because the way inflation and money printing is going, that will be worth about $3.50 in a decade or two, so everyone will be caught by it.
Don’t buy into the fear-mongering being pushed.
For a comfortable retirement in 2026, the amount required is ~$800K (this is already on the high end).
Assuming a consistent worst-case inflation rate of 4% every year (double the RBA target), it would take 25 years to hit $2m - let alone the $3m+ in question here.
There is a very small, very wealthy cohort with $3m+ in superannuation savings - and you, statistically speaking, aren’t part of it.
Fuck ‘em - they need to be taxed more.
I get and support the gist of this.
In terms of dollar values, I worry about 2 things:
Maybe if it was set as the equivalent of $3M in gold as at 12 March 2026 I’d be OK…
PS:800k might be the comfortable today, but there have been multiple times the share market etc has halved, or even lost 90% of it’s value. Unless you have 2x to 10x 800k, and have a living portion in liquid assets, you are not immune.
As an alternate POV, if somebody had $5M in super today, would we be OK with no extra tax if the markets crashed 50% and that meant their super was only worth $2.5M now? And the $3M fatcat who only held shares in his dodgy cousin’s company that tanked, some NFTs, and cryptocurrency was now worth $100k?
You say this about the people that pay the majority of all income taxes already lol. When did this commie “successful people should be penalised more and more for being successful!” ideology become so popular in Australia?
No amount of extra tax from the wealthy is going to result in reduced taxes for everyone else. The wealthy and the high earners already pay almost all of the tax. All it’s going to do is end up in more government waste and corruption.
Also……why do they need to be taxed more? Are they using more government services than everyone else? Do they get special roads that only they get to drive on?
The commie perspective is that the owning class (not the same as having a lot of money or “being successful”!) gain profit off the backs of workers, and therefore we don’t get our fair share of the value we produce. High taxation isn’t a commie idea, it’s a social democrat (capitalist) idea to try and moderate the broken system that lets the boards of mining giants sit in billionaire luxury while selling the soil beneath our feet for themselves.
But that’s nitpicking the premise. A better answer to your question:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_Australia#Historical_personal_income_tax_rates_and_brackets for more info
So “a bloody long time ago” is my guess.
That entire perspective is absurd joke. People being paid to do their job are getting what they’re owed. If they want to start a business they can go ahead and do it and reap the rewards……or the losses. That’s the risk.
Is this claiming that the amount someone deserves is determined by their contract? That’s an odd assumption, even if it’s a normalised one.
We live under a system where millions of people don’t have, and can’t get, the capital (or expertise) needed to start their own legal profitable business, and effectively must resort to selling themselves to earn a living wage. And even if that wasnt the case, we obviously can’t all run individual businesses in this system without being outcompeted and being forced back into proletarianisation. Most of the population being workers rather than business owners isn’t some personal decision, it’s a basic premise of capitalism.
And there isn’t much power a worker has to influence what salaries are being offered on the market. The business owner sets the wage, and if there are enough unemployed and underemployed people looking for jobs to avoid homelessness, business owners collectively decide how low they can all go (and luckily there’s a minimum wage so they can’t just race to the bottom livable wage). So there’s no material reason to assume that a person only deserves the amount their salary is - it’s not based on how useful a worker is, just on how low a business owner can offer.
Let’s take an extreme example to illustrate: slave labour. Or let’s dial it back: prison labour - Canberra Times reports prisoners get paid about $2 an hour for their labour, AusPrisons.com lists weekly rates the same ballpark. I got paid far more as a teen performing menial minimum wage factory work. Clearly these people are being paid so low because its legal to do so and because they’re not in a good position to decline such abysmal offers. Not because their labour isn’t valuable, not because their work isn’t worth more, not because the business owner is taking more risk. It’s because they’re vulnerable employees and they can be exploited more for profit.
As a side note:
I have been underpayed thousands of dollars by multiple jobs. So I’m not even getting paid what I’m legally owed until I or the union point out the wage theft.
What’s your suggestion? Tax low income more? People of wealth have a significant ability to manipulate and reduce tax bills. I don’t think payroll tax is the answer, but taxing wealth, assets and corporations is.
No, taxing wealth and assets isn’t the answer. People shouldn’t be punished simply for being successful and owning things.
Your last point is - making corporations actually pay taxes. No more Apple Australia buying iPhones from Apple Scotland for the exact same price they sell them to customers for, meaning no profit in Australia, for example. No more mining giants paying nothing to literally sell the ground out from under us.
Income tax should be abolished, and instead make it spending/usage based. Spend more pay more.
The only thing I agree with “taxing the rich” for is fines - they should be percentage based. $1000 for your passenger having their seatbelt slightly off hurts someone earning $60k a lot more than it hurts someone earning $600k.
It’s not punishment for being wealthy, it’s giving back to the community that helps you live in luxury. The taxes won’t send them broke, or make a big dent in their savings.
And I agree with the fines. Should be a minimum plus a percentage of your last financial year’s income.
It is punishment. The wealthy already “give back” far more than the rest of the population in terms of tax.
It’s just pure jealousy.