Kudos from my accountant [AUS]

[JLR]

Just back from visiting our new accountant. He was very surprised that we had made personal contributions to my superannuation account to max out both the spouse and low-income tax offsets. Apparently he has only one other client who does that and he was curious how we knew to do it.

[ixtap]

There were some very loud patrons at the restaurant that has seating right outside if my office. They were claiming that Australia doesn't have any kind of retirement. Is the super newish?

[AliEli]

We've had compulsory super since 1994 or thereabouts.  Employers pay into the fund, and it's set at 9% of your wages at present, though that may go up in the future.  We also have the aged pension, but that's not enough to comfortably retire on for most.

[JLR]

As AliEli said, compulsory superannuation has only been around since the early 90s, and the rates were a lot lower in the early days.

The single aged pension is currently around $23 000pa.  A single person can have a paid off home they live in, plus around $250 000 in other assets and still receive the full aged pension. If you are a renter there are extra payments you can receive on top of the pension, to help you pay your rent. Plus pensioners receive free emergency medical care (as all Australians do), reduced price medication, and often reduced rates to visit the doctor (at many places there is no charge at all to see the doctor if you are on the Aged Pension).

Australia is in a bit of a transition period between workers retiring onto the aged pension (if they don't have enough of their own savings/assets) and people retiring onto their superannuation.

[marty998]

Just back from visiting our new accountant. He was very surprised that we had made personal contributions to my superannuation account to max out both the spouse and low-income tax offsets. Apparently he has only one other client who does that and he was curious how we knew to do it.

Nicely done - people literally throw away thousands not doing this...