Australia does like to make things complicated. Even simple concepts like not double taxing company earnings gets complicated to the point where ordinary people can't see the loophole in their knitting. Add in a $1.6M accumulation cap and a ridiculously low $800k asset threshold for receiving a pension and watch retirees duck. Now pinch their franking credit offsets as well!
Why not simplify it all. Get rid of caps amd thresholds and simply tax earnings in a pension fund just like everybody else. Why should someone working hard trying to support a family have to pay tax on investment income when someone in retirement does not. Just pay every retiree a pension and tax any investment earnings. Then workers and retirees are pay tax equally and get the same franking credits.
Of course, tax concessions should remain during accumulation, but raise caps on contributions because the more that is accumulated the more tax the government will earn from wealthy retirees
