Already the government has capped the maximum amount that can be invested in tax-free pension funds at $1.6 million and limited annual tax-deductible superannuation contributions to $25,000.

Higher income taxpayers will require other ways to accumulate sufficient wealth to maintain their living standard in retirement.

The most tax effective and popular way to do this has been borrowing to buy property assisted by the negative gearing tax provisions. However, a change in government could close off this option to new investors purchasing existing properties.

In addition, all investors purchasing new assets would face a 50 per cent increase in the capital gains tax payable when these assets are sold.

Whereas currently, investors can be reasonably confident that capital gains tax will not be levied on gains required to match inflation, that would no longer be the case for new investments.

Higher income earners would still have a strong incentive to build wealth to protect their living standards but their options would be more limited. Investments in trusts and personal names are the two main options but these in most cases would involve larger personal tax bills calculated using relatively high marginal rates.

At lower or modest income levels, the impact of current and future tax rules is a lesser concern.

Superannuation is still an attractive option especially when the family home is owned outright. Nevertheless, the doubling of the severity of the age pension assets test in 2017 and the plan to cease cash refunds of franking credits to pension funds and low-income retirees if enacted would reduce the benefits of accumulating assets for retirement.

For a married couple, the current actuarial value of the combined age pension is around $800,000. Yet the assets test precludes access to any age pension when assets are only slightly higher than this amount.

Effectively, unless future retirees can accumulate much more than $800,000, they will be reducing the size of the pension available to them. When the assets test applies, every $100,000 of assets reduces annual pension entitlement by $7800.

Without access to cash refunds of franking credits, the returns available on dividends from share investments would be lower than those needed to provide a replacement income for the age pension.

Therefore, limiting the accumulation of assets to levels that do not preclude or only marginally reduce the available age pension could become the most popular strategy.

In this process, the most disadvantaged would be the non-homeowners who receive only a meagre $200,000 additional asset test exemption in lieu of the total exemption of the family home.

Daryl Dixon is the executive chairman of Dixon Advisory