What made you decide I didn't have a smsf? If you had read many of my previous posts hard to see how you came to that conclusion. Marginal rate was actually around 60% for a couple of years, but I try and forget about that, and on average a tad more than 20k, but I exaggerated, more like 35 than 40 years. At your age , you might like to look at the cgt relief for sale of active assets before labor gets in by the way. I found it very useful. There were a couple of other modest ways of diverting income at concessional rates in the middle years [as well as when the bounders upped the contribution tax], but they are long gone.
Now, lets try and go through the inaccuracies and misconceptions in your post. 1st get out your box of crayons and a calculator. Now look at that 7k per year in the example for a start. Assume a 7.5% return net , try compounding that over the time periods I have been talking about[a hint, use the 72 rule as a short cut]. If your manage to struggle thru that, notice something about the number, omg, it is a big number isn't it. Now I wont suggest you attempt the following, but think about the earnings on the other accumulating 10k per year, at the same 7.5% net. Now think about the difference between this figure if you had the same 10k accumulating at about 4.5% net over that time[this would approximately be the net %, if it was the same investment after tax , out of super], add that difference to the benefit of the tax concessions. OMG, an even bigger number!
Now shall we move on to the accumulation fund you mentioned. Wow, 15% tax, isn't that quite low? Could there be a bit of an advantage there, dare I say it, another concession? Sky is the limit on that one, number could be very large, depends on the size of the fund and its earnings. Your point about non concessional contributions, you are right, no tax saving right away. I avoided those mostly. 15% tax rate again on investment earnings, could we agree that is low again? One bit where you may have got confused, the 700k refers to a couples. You seem to have referred ,adjacent to that , to a single super account. Perhaps I have misinterpreted. I also see no comment on the ongoing cost to treasury for the zero tax rate on post 60 earnings, did you miss that bit? I admit, I've used an extreme example to make the numbers easy to understand[at least I thought they were], but if you run the numbers at lower levels, including into the part pension bits, it is obvious that the concessions are not good value for treasury.
Now, I'll just go off and crank up the coffee machine, and bemoan the fact that I didn't even last 30 years in the business, before I found other ways to have fun. And you are right about one thing, we have very different outlooks. I found it great fun to weave my way thru the system[and still do], but I don't fool myself into thinking I deserved the largesse afforded me by the system, and I wont whine when they curtail my games, just smile and thank my lucky stars they let me get away with it so long.
