One of the most important things you can do financially is to save for your retirement.
Buying a house (and paying it off) is great, it's the Australian dream for a lot of people. But everyone needs to retire, so you can see why a tool that allows you to save for your retirement at lower tax rates could be attractive.
Taxes and fees are two of the biggest detractors from your wealth over the long-term. The older you are the better it is to consider adding to superannuation for your retirement.
However, as a young(ish) Australian I see the effectiveness of superannuation slowly eroding with lower contribution limits, lower tax-free balances and a steadily-higher access age. Who knows what's going to happen over the next three or four decades? The access age could hit 70 or more by the time I get there.
The uncertainty of future rules makes me question the merits of locking money away for decades.
Sure, making investments outside of super comes with higher tax rates, but I'm happy to pay that for the earlier access. Indeed, I have much better investment choice flexibility outside of super whereas you have to pay more fees to have a similar level of options inside the superannuation system. What about if you want to invest in slightly less popular but good investments like BetaShares NASDAQ 100 ETF (ASX: NDQ) or WAM Microcap Limited (ASX: WMI).
Super definitely makes sense for high income earners who don't see themselves wanting to retire early. The tax savings are worth it.
But for me as a young person, I would rather pay a bit more income tax along the way and have much more certainty about the level of control & access of the majority of my retirement fund outside of super.
