How much capital do I need to retire comfortably on ?

[Beagle]

Whatever Kees, justify it however you like. I know if there is a handout when I retire I will take it with both hands if it is on offer as well.

Roger I don't mean to upset people, I just wonder if national superannuation is affordable and should people who don't need any help get it.
Your argument is that you have paid taxes all your life so you should get some back. I gave a link to the government accounts to 30/06/2014 further back in this thread. The financial statements don’t show that much money was put aside to fund national super in fact our net worth is $80billion while annual national super costs are $10 billion. Not nearly enough has been put aside for national super and we currently run annual deficits. I think the Cullen fund is something like $14bill but not sure where it is shown in the accounts. I am sure most people on this website could breakdown the figures better than me.
I think people have got their heads in the sand and are hoping John Key will make it alright by not discussing the issue. Maybe I worry too much and need to wait and see if there really is an issue further down the track but it would be a shame to look back in twenty or thirty years from now and say “what a shame we didn’t think long term a bit sooner. What a shame these old people have to live on next to nothing but unfortunately we can’t afford it now”. John Key won’t need National Super so he doesn’t need to talk about it but there are a lot of NZers who do, now and in the future.
It is not an attack on old people more like ensuring we as a nation can help those who need it now and in the future.

Fair enough Aaron.

Many of you won't recall or perhaps aren't even aware that at one stage we did indeed have a national superannuation surtax, (sorry I can't remember when it was instituted and then subsequently abolished), but ostensibly it operated in a similar manner to the Australian scheme whereby retiree's with personal income over a certain level had their superannuation reduced by a certain rate for every extra dollar they earned.

In Australia as I understand it, a retiree with $72,000 of personal income becomes ineligible for their super, (its abated before that personal income threshold). I understand they have tinkered with this in their latest $35b deficit budget yesterday and a tougher system has been implemented.

IIRC...we are going back over 20 years here... it became something of a political football and was it Labour that promised to abolish it ?, someone help me out here please.

As a nation I agree that we probably need to have another look at super's affordability. Should someone earning north of $100K and 65 years old still be eligible for super ?

Its such a can of worms. Wealthy people will simply move assets to family trusts if they haven't already and there's so many ways to skin a cat in terms of a family trust making non cash distributions to beneficiaries who are also trustee's so even if you go for full look-through provisions in family trusts in terms of revenue distributions there's nothing to stop trusts owning fancy houses and paying all the outgoings, also beach houses, luxury cars, boats e.t.c....Where do you draw the line...do we go so far as to have a fringe benefit system for family trusts for wealthy retiree's, surely that's a bridge too far, or maybe not ?

Also people are living longer with advances in healthcare so maybe raising the age of eligibility makes the simplest and most effective sense in terms of making the system affordable, I don't know but I reckon raising it to say 67 or 68 makes sense. Maybe even 70 ? I'll probably work till I'm 70 (at least part time), but I have a desk job, obviously its much tougher for someone like a builder or a panelbeater.

I think instituting Kiwisaver was a good thing the Govt did...maybe its inevitable its becomes compulsory at some stage ?