Disinequality

"The federal government should remove the 15% tax on women's superannuation contributions to compensate them for a lifetime of lower earnings and retirement savings, according to super administrator, Superpartners.

Superpartners chief executive Frank Gullone made the call following the release of the third annual Newspoll survey into community attitudes to retirement and superannuation.

The survey found that women were half as likely as men to expect super to provide most of their retirement income. It also found that 60% more women than men expected to rely on the aged pension as their main source of retirement income.

"The only conclusion from these findings is that the current superannuation regime does not offer women the same level of security as it does men, which has implications for women's standards of living in retirement by comparison to men," Mr Cullone said. "The findings reflect the broken working patterns, predominance of casual and part-time work and generally lower salary levels experienced by women.
"This can be seen to challenge the effectiveness of the current superannuation system for providing women with financial security and its accompanying dignity in their old age." Removing the 15% contributions tax on women's super would be the simplest and fairest way of redressing this imbalance, he said. "