Brazilian novelist Paul Coelho once wrote: “Forgive but do not forget. Forgiving changes the perspectives. Forgetting loses the lesson.”

This came back to me as I pondered the potential super-sized mistake that Treasurer Jim Chalmers could soon make. You have to hope that the nation’s leader, his boss, Anthony Albanese stops him from taxing unrealised gains.

I often joke with business audiences I address that when I taught Applied Macroeconomics at the University of New South Wales. I’d say, Treasurers often put on a horror budget in the first year because they know Australians love to drink, so short-term memory loss kicks in by the time the next election comes around.

However, if Treasurer Jim Chalmers ignores the good advice from the likes of Wentworth’s teal MP, Allegra Spender and his legendary pin-up pollie, Paul Keating, then his super tax mistake might never be forgotten.

In case you’ve forgotten, a super tax idea that the Government had before the election - one that had been opposed by the majority of members in the Senate - is a proposed super tax on the earnings of balances over $3 million. It's a tax grab in two parts.

First, earnings on balances over $3 million would be taxed at 30%, which is bigger than the 15% most super members are slugged.

Second, Dr Chalmers wants to tax unrealised income gains, which means if you have a good year on the stock market, those gains on balances over $3 million would be taxed, even if you didn’t actually pocket them.

Under current tax laws, you only get taxed when you sell an asset. The capital gain you receive as income/cash is what gets taxed as an earning. But Jim wants to tax wealthy super members if gains happen, even if they're not turned into income, which is a bit of a shock to the Aussie system.

The AFR’s Phillip Coorey captured the Keating view on Jim’s super tax. “Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating also remains opposed to the policy, both on the principle of taxing unrealised gains and the refusal to index the $3 million threshold,” he wrote. “Keating is telling people that the lack of indexation effectively introduces bracket creep into the super system which he created.”

Off-the-record, some Labor MPs think Jim has gone off the deep end with this idea of taxing of unrealised gains, while others say this was the party’s policy all along. The latter ideology struggles to pass the pub test, as it was never showcased as an important initiative to voters pondering how they’d vote before the election.

Those who were afraid of Jim’s super slug ahead of the recent poll never dreamed Labor would win so handily. Now only a Greens member or two are needed to get this draconian tax into law.

All this comes with the Tax Office code of Division 296, but while all this is a worry, the news has become decidedly dodgy when you learn that special rules for calculating and levying Division 296 allow the following earners to be excluded:

1. Individuals with defined benefit interests (i.e. politicians and public servants).
2. State higher level office holders with superannuation contributions to constitutionally protected funds.
3. Commonwealth justices and judges.
4. Territory Supreme Court judges.

Say it ain't so, Jim! If you want to put in a stinker of a tax to slug wealthy Aussies with big super balances, it has to apply to ALL Aussies. There can’t be exceptions!

While these protected species-Australians are set to get it easy, citizens with SMSFs with businesses, farms, property and shares in their funds, will be forced to sell assets to get the cash to pay the tax on unrealised gains!

This action will make a lot of SMSF trustees think about closing their fund and shifting to an industry fund, which would please many of Jim’s mates running those funds.

Don’t do this Jim! You’re better than that.