Private retirement schemes do not need government incentives

Its been a while since my last post. Yup, 4 years to be exact. In financial terms, 4 years can accommodate two market cycles.

Just got back from a seminar on pensions organised by my employer in a hotel in KL Sentral. I heard speeches from very good and prominent speakers, all experts in pensions and anythg associated with retirement benefit systems around the globe. I learned a lot and discovered new things, and I still have another day to go tomorrow.

But there was one thing I thought was most irritating. One of the sessions was about private pension schemes, and here it meant the retirement savings over and above what is mandatory under EPF. What I find most irritating was when the speakers cite the need for tax incentives for it to work. Tax incentives??? No, they're not talking about a retirement scheme for the poor or some 70-80% EPF members who have insufficient savings at retirement. They're talking about the top bracket of savers who are looking at beyond EPF to keep their excess cash. I think the last thing Malaysia need right now is another tax incentive for the rich to make more money.

If the rich wants to create new avenues to save their excesses, they should go their own way and stop asking the government for more incentives. The government has enough problems as it is to deal with issues like minimum wage, public housing, subsidies and insufficient retirement savings for the poor.

Btw the views above are entirely my own.