Retirement
Retirees request retirement income review guarantee
The Association of Independent Retirees (AIR) is seeking confirmation that the government review into retirement income will not seek to make changes to legislation that might have a detrimental impact on already-retired or well-prepared Australians.

Retirees request retirement income review guarantee
The Association of Independent Retirees (AIR) is seeking confirmation that the government review into retirement income will not seek to make changes to legislation that might have a detrimental impact on already-retired or well-prepared Australians.

In a statement released earlier this week, the AIR said it is particularly concerned that retirees who set their retirement investments in place prior to their leaving of the workforce could be subjected to changes that would adversely affect their retirement income.
The review aims to consider the current state of the retirement income system and how it will perform in the future, and will look at the “three pillars” that are at play: the Aged Pension, compulsory superannuation, and voluntary savings or investments.
A three-person panel will consider how the retirement income supports retired Australians, the role of each “pillar”, the distributional impacts across the population and over time of such a system, as well as the impact of current policy setting on public finances.
While welcoming the review, AIR director Terry O’Callaghan commented that “changing the ‘goal posts’ on legislative arrangements for Australians who have already retired and are partly or fully self-funding their retirement, should not be an option for the review”.
AIR said it is seeking assurance from the government that today’s retirees won’t be perversely affected by the review, because “retirees need certainty in planning for their retirement”, Mr O’Callaghan considered.
“Members of AIR look forward to the review independent panel considering ways of improving the efficiency and competitiveness of superannuation and encouraging a greater percentage of the working population to partly or fully fund their retirement,” the director continued.
According to the association, the outcomes from the review need to ensure that sufficient incentives apply to encourage more Australians to provide for their retirement through superannuation and private savings to assist in reducing the pressure on the federal budget.
It has also expressed an enthusiasm to raise a number of issues with the review’s panellists for inclusion in the final report.
These include:
- Retirees having an adequate level of income that provides for at least the standard of living experienced prior to retirement
- Retention of investment incentives that are considered fair, including superannuation concessions, franking credits on Australian equities, negative gearing on investment properties, and the current 50 per cent discount on capital gains tax
- Allowing workers who were self-employed or have no superannuation to sell privately held assets exempt of capital gains tax up to a defined cap, and purchase a tax-free retirement income stream product
- Improving information that assists retirees with benchmarking their superannuation’s performance and private investment yield
- Providing assistance with provision of alternative low-risk investment opportunities in times of low fixed interest, as is currently the climate
- A broadening of the current age-based percentage drawdowns for account-based income stream pensions with a broadening of the age ranges, as well as a lowering of the minimum drawdown percentages once a retiree has reached 75 years of age
- Making an adjustment to deeming rules to better relate to a low investment environment
“Any new legislation concerning the three pillars of Australia’s retirement income system resulting from the review should be based on fairness, transparency and certainty,” Mr O’Callaghan concluded.
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