At this time of year, friends, family, clients and complete strangers ask me what I think will be in the Budget. I guess when you are tagged a “money man”, it’s what you have to cop because most people don’t think I have a view on the greatest book, painting or movie ever! Maybe that’s wise.

Anyway, that question was harder to answer 30 years ago when I was new to this Budget-predicting game. Treasurers didn’t give away many hints about what was unwrapped on Budget night on the second Tuesday in May in Canberra.

Nowadays, the smarties who politically advise governments suggest they leak possible budget changes to see how the public reacts. This can lead to tweaks or a total dumping if the political loss from a new policy outweighs the economic gains from a change.

I’ll look at what has been leaked on Tuesday morning next week, but one leak that has been given a big treatment by The Australian’s Simon Benson is about the possible introduction of the $3 million cap on super balances.

At this stage it looks like a punishment for rich successful or lucky people where the tax on any super money over $3 million will be taxed at 30% not 15%. “According to documents obtained under Freedom of Information, Treasury advised Jim Chalmers’ office that, based on its own assumptions, a 20-year-old today earning an average wage throughout their career would have a super balance of more than $3m by the time they reached their early 60s,” Benson informs us. “Opposition analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics and tax ­office data based on the Treasury modelling suggests that this would impact 2.05 million Australians currently aged under 25.”

Right now, the Government tells us there’s only 1% of super accounts with more than $3 million in them but it’s not the Aussies now who Benson is worried about — it’s the group who really don’t give a toss about super until they reach their 50s and start looking to see what they’re going to have to live on if no boss wants them anymore!

What we know is that the new super tax would start in 2025 and it would see the concessional tax rate doubled from 15% to 30% on balances of more than $3 million.

But the big story is the fact that the government has also ruled out indexing the $3 million threshold. This is why younger people, as they age, they will be slugged with a 30% tax rather than the current 15%.

This is what Benson says Treasury expects will happen with the proposed tax: “The tax increase is forecast to generate almost $2bn in revenue and provide structural relief to the budget over the longer term. Treasury has estimated the shake-up to affect about 80,000 people when it is introduced in 2025-26 and has forecast that, in 30 years, the top 10 per cent of earners would be captured upon retirement.”

What we know is:

1. Tax on superannuation earnings for balances over $3 million will double from 15% to 30%.
2. The tax change would bring in about $2 billion in additional tax over four years.
3. The average superannuation balance is $150,000, but about two-thirds of Australians have less than $100,000 in their accounts.
4. The Government says “17 people had more than $100 million in their super accounts, while one person had more than $400 million”.
5. The $3 million threshold will not be indexed for inflation and that’s why 2 million younger Australians will eventually pay more tax on their super.
6. The changes will see financial advisers try and find less tax-hitting legal strategies for their existing and future clients.

What we don’t know is:

1. Whether the concessional tax on money going into super before retirement will also be taxed at 30%.
2. Whether the 30% tax will be on all earnings if your balance is over $3 million or just for the amount over $3 million.

No doubt these questions and more will be made clearer next Tuesday.