Pensioners and others saving for a rainy day have reported trying to access their savings only to discover their money had been seized by the government because it had been dormant for three years or more.
The government has collected more money from inactive bank accounts under the three-year rule than the total amount captured in the past five decades combined.
Nearly $360 million from 80,000 accounts was funnelled into government coffers in the year to May after Labor lowered the threshold, eclipsing the $330 million netted between 1959 and 2012, during which time idle accounts could only be touched after seven years.
The Treasury now looks poised to raise the threshold in the face of fierce lobbying from the banking industry, with Finance Minister Mathias Cormann releasing a discussion paper on changing the definition of inactivity from three years to five. Such a change would halve the number of inactive accounts taken by the government each year, he said.
Comment: Big Government just seizes your bank accounts after only three years of inactivity - and then YOU have to take the time, effort and money to get it back!
And that's assuming you'll get it back...
This is definitely another sign that CorpGov intends to just swipe everyone's money while the they can (and while money still has perceived value).