The family home has long been the financial refuge for those who have scrimped and saved to own the roof over their own heads. It has had a protected status when means testing was introduced to limit the aged pension to what the government termed " the needy ".
Now the Federal government has started the " softening up " process to convince home owners that their wish to " leave something for the children to inherit " must be abandoned in favour of providing them with " a safe and comfortable " retirement.
We are about to see a blow out in the number of aged people because better health care has extended our life spans. This will require more aged care facilities - and the money is not there to provide this facility. We can expect the ratio of younger working people paying taxes to decline as the number of retired people living in care facilities increases.
The answer - as the " bean counters " insist - is to use the money tied up in family homes to be converted into a fund to provide aged care. To get a bed in a future aged care facility the home owner will be required to sell the family home and invest the equity so gained in some sort of government bond - from which the cost of that aged care will be steadily drawn.
It is a form of " death tax " which will please the Greens, who have in their platform the re-installation of a death tax to implement their social engineering platform.
What will worry most people is the prospect of any form of government managing the money gained from the sale of their home in a prudent and careful manner. We have seen the outcome of various government schemes by both sides of politics over the years - and the one conclusion gained is that the government is not capable of managing money without waste, bad planning - and eventual corruption.
We will retain fond memories of the days when owning a home was financial security - for life.
But - that was then ! And this is now !
No comments:
Post a Comment