Bracket creep is the great stealth tax: inflation pushes workers into higher tax brackets, allowing governments surreptitiously to collect more revenue. Though rarely talked about, the phenomenon is occurring in superannuation too – only it goes by the name division 293 tax. This is the extra 15¢ in the dollar levied on the super contributions of higher income earners.

When division 293 tax was introduced in 2012, the threshold at which the levy kicked in was $300,000. There it remained until 2016, when the Coalition announced that the threshold would drop to $250,000. If Labor wins on May 18, it will drop it further to $200,000. Like the thresholds for personal income tax brackets, the division 293 tax threshold is not indexed. So as each year passes and incomes gradually rise, more taxpayers drift into the division 293 orbit.