This paper is a further developed version of the author’s submission to the Treasury consultation on the federal government’s Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions proposal, lodged in April 2023. The proposal is to add to the existing superannuation tax system a total balance threshold of $3 million, beyond which individuals would be subject to an additional...

Tax breaks on superannuation are excessively generous and should be wound back to help fix the budget, according to this report. The report shows that super tax breaks cost the budget $45 billion a year – or about 2 per cent of GDP – and will soon exceed the cost of the aged pension.

In this paper, the author justifies an economic formulation of effective tax rates which better expresses the impact of taxes on behaviour and on welfare than the conventional legalistic formulation.

The main focus of this paper is to carefully analyse the estimates of tax concessions made by the Australian Treasury and TTPI.

This paper looks at the distribution of four tax concessions. The four tax concessions are worth $60 billion per year and include negative gearing, superannuation tax concessions, capital gain tax discount and excess franking credits.