The easing out of the age pension qualifying age is causing some anxiety among SMSF members as to the effect this move will have on the official age of retirement, a trustee forum has revealed.
The qualifying age for the age pension was adjusted at 1 July and is now 65 years and six months. In the coming years, this age is set to ease out by six months every two years until 1 July 2023, when it will land at the age of 67.
Fielding questions from the floor at the recent selfmanagedsuper SMSF Trustee Empowerment Day, Miller Super Solutions founder Tim Miller was asked if the retirement age of 65, where a condition of release for superannuants is automatically satisfied, will change in light of the age pension changes.
“It’s a little bit of a how long is a piece of string question, but the political answer to that is no,” Miller said.
“But that’s in the current political climate.
“The age pension qualifying age we know is now increasing to 67 and there was always that talk of it theoretically going to 70. We’re not at that, we’re at 67, but the 65 retirement age has not been changed.”
Miller again qualified his answer by suggesting there were no guarantees as to what might happen if the government changed.
“They’re political problems. But once you start saying to people you can’t touch your super until you’re 67, then all of a sudden you’ll be getting a lot more people offside,” he said.
