I've come across this on my FB feed:

https://kiwisaver.nationalcapital.co...ecial-report-3

Now I haven't read the full report but have a strong suspicion what went wrong (they picked the wrong stocks). In fact i'm not surprised how poor Kiwi Saver funds perform in general when compared to managed funds in N. America. Is there any recourse to lock in your $ for over 10 years and to realise it's come out at the bottom of the pack? You wouldn't think so with a conservative 'default' allocation.

Anyways, i'm hitting at the whole Kiwi Saving scheme right where it matters and this deals in taxation. Lots of focus talk about the high management fees in these Kiwi Saver funds but none talk about the whole picture. How does a Kiwi Saver person get much of a gain when the gains in these funds are taxed annually? (ie even with the lower PIE rate - still a joke)? Is it not a surprise investing into rental properties has so much of a huge leg up in gain and because those that bought into Auckland 10 or 20 years ago have done so well, the Labour Gov't is out at attacking those investors because it's "Unfair". So let's bring in the capital gains tax and let's watch how much more worse Kiwi Saver funds will be.

Now i've been pointed out that technically there's no difference in the end fund balance between those that invested into a fund with AFTER-taxed income and have no tax to pay at the end vs investing into a fund with DEFERRED-taxed income into a fund and then pay the tax at the end. But au contraire, the differences are remarkable. Jack Bogle (RIP) of Vanguard Funds has saved more $ for his investors in advocating LOW FEE ETFs because it's these expenses are so taxing against "compound returns".

Here's from a Canadian perspective about investing into RRSPs. The primary goal is tax deferred investing but more importantly, TAX-FREE compound gains. The guy in the video says it right. Will the NZ person in his Kiwi Saver have more than the Cdn person in his RRSP? Not by a long shot.

https://business.financialpost.com/p...stop-repeating