Time to give the over 50's a voice in budget debates on tax, retirement and work

I think the government, young people and the RBA are getting ahead of themselves. 1)Approaching retirement and in retirement you cannot really invest in the sharemarkets, bond-markets or property at this time in history, because all three are huge financial bubbles. 2)The days of affluent mindlessness are over as we sink further into the biggest Balance Sheet Depression in history. 3)The banks have had 7 years to get their house in orde after being insolvent in October 2008.Instead they have not rectified their huge fractional reserve banking, and continue to pay themselves very high incomes as well as large dividends to shareholders. The banks will surely fail. 4)The Government Guarantee for insolvent banks has a cap of $20 Billion per bank, which is very inadequate for the big 4 which have $1,400 Billion in deposits, but only covered by $80 Billion for all 4. 5)Depositor bail-ins will be used in bank failures. 

Personally I believe the survey is very flawed. If it has been designed by a professional then I would sack them. There are not enough possible responses and effectively has been designed to get the overall answer you want. It is nowhere near perfect and as such results should be treated with some scepticism. However this does not take away from what you are doing, just that the end result leaves a lot to be desired. 

GST should be increased to 20% on everything and personal income tax rates reduced. To stop the rorting/gaming of the OAP all people of retirement age should be given the pensioner card for the medical discounts. People should not be able to access their super until retirement age unless they pay a penalty equal to the tax concessions the received on the deposits. And then they should take their super as an annuity. Government should stop spending so much: Middle class welfare should be abolished asap. Julie of Darlinghurst 

When considering more taxation and other money saving schemes, why is it nothing is proposed for the individuals who think them up ie the politicians or rather the committees who say that "this is the way to go." I certainly think that the larger corporations should be paying a larger share of taxation, instead of the present system of greatly reduced taxation due to the loopholes available to them. 

After working in the Health Food industry for some 15 years I was eager for a change. I joke that it was either buy a sports car or invest in education to serve my male menopause. I wish I had bought the sports car! I saw an appeal for more people to fill radiography positions, hosted by Bligh and Sally-Ann (remember them?), and had an interest so signed up for the only available full-time course at QUT. After a 4-year investment of time and money, being assured that there was no ageism, sexism, or nepotism, I found the exact opposite at graduation time. No-one over 38 got a graduates employment position, even my 50 y.o. lab partner who graduated with honours could not get a spot. 

People want to get to their super early to get into the housing market, explain to these people that a 40 year loan is fine. At the end people forget that super is there so gov doesn't have a pension for them. More information or education to the young stupid people to understand all this. As now people have got used to putting their hand out. GET REAL. I also always hear people say how much child care is BUT BUT NEVER NEVER how much they get back from the govn. Cheers BRENDON 

Why is there not a special rate on power phone etc for over 55's they are still contributing to taxation but some are finding it hard to make ends meet and are suffering because everything is so expensive . 

I wholeheartedly agree with Marino from WA 

A good start would be to review the perks our present and past politicians are in line for. These should be abolished in some instances. Then look at the entire taxing system in this country and in particular the multinational corporations who have been raping this country for years. Its about time we get stricter in letting these do business in this nation. 

There is a lot of comment from both sides of politics, with regard to any proposed changes to tax rules, about the so called anomalies in, and fairness of the existing tax system. The strange thing is that the greatest anomaly in our tax system is that the family home, or so called primary place of residence, is exempt from capital gains tax, and yet it never gets mentioned. A recent article from the Garvan Institute indicated that if a limited capital gains tax on the family home was introduced very gradually, it would solve all of the projected budget problems. At the same time it seems ridiculous that persons living in a 10 million dollar home can still be eligible for the pension. Why don't the politicians talk about these issues. Tony from Queensland