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Saturday, 27 February 2021
Recently trending Great new ways the Government helps retireesFour simple strategies deliver long-term investing comfort $100 billion! Five reasons investors are flocking to ETFsCut it out ... millionaires are not wealthyA close look at retiree fears and expectations
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Such is the concern among unions and Labor about Government plans to undermine superannuation that an 'Emergency Summit' was called this week, and pioneer Bill Kelty evoked a social commitment.
Super counts for only 20% of the wealth of Australians. For retirement incomes, most younger people today will still receive most of their income from the age pension when they retire in three decades’ time.
The family home is the bedrock on which many retirement plans sit, with special tax and social security benefits. Many products generate an income stream from the home to make retirement more comfortable.
Most Australians are comfortable in retirement provided they own their homes. We’re failing retirees who rent but we also need to include more of the family home in the pension assets test.
During the GFC, in the face of rapid falls in super balances, the minimum drawdowns required for pensions were reduced by 50% to help preserve overall retirement savings. It's time for a repeat.
Two-thirds of the responses to our reader poll say the family home should be included in some way in the age pension assets test, but the comments show it is an emotional and divisive subject.
Do people who have worked hard all their lives really have an 'entitlement' to an age pension? Somewhere along the line, has any government made a solemn promise to Australian retirees?
Super is reducing reliance on the age pension for the majority of people entering retirement. Most newly-retired Australians are not accessing the age pension at all, and only 25% of 66-year-olds are drawing a full age pension.
Life expectancies have increased dramatically since the nineties, but the uncertainty is forcing retirees to live too frugally. The super industry is switching its attention to the drawdown phase to find better solutions.
The 2018 Budget has opened the possibility that the Pension Loans Scheme will become a more popular part of retirement income planning.
A reader asks whether people can stay off the age pension by reducing the amount of money they live on in retirement but not drawing on their capital.
It's become common to claim there is no incentive to save more than $500,000 because of the loss of age pensions and possibly franking credits. But these arguments overlook the way super is supposed to operate.
Last year's retiree checklist of services available was one of our most popular articles. There are some additions for 2021, and while it can take effort to set them up, they can pay off over the long term.
A long-time advocate of the merits of generating income by investing in industrial companies rather than bonds or deposits checks his 'mothership' chart for the latest results, and continues to feel vindicated.
It's not official, but Australian ETFs are clicking over $100 billion right now. It's a remarkable rise, leaving the traditional rivals, the Listed Investment Companies, in their dust. Why are they so popular?
The widespread use of 'millionaire' must stop. Inflation means that the basket of goods and services that cost $1 million in 1960 now requires $15 million. Today, millionaires are not wealthy.
Half of Australians retire early due to unexpected circumstances and within timeframes they did not choose, and two-thirds of pre-retirees worry about funding their retirement. But neither are the greatest fear in retirement.
Senator Jane Hume presented at the SMSFA conference this week, and we reproduce the full transcript as a guide to what the Government is thinking on superannuation reforms as we head into the next election.