Caveo Partners chief economist and financial strategist Theo Marinis said this “valley of pain is super’s dirty little secret”.

The numbers vary between single and couple pensioners and part-pensioners, but the pain generally starts to affect retiree homeowners when their other wealth sits between around $500,000 and $1.1m.

“At $600,000 you are probably in a better position than someone with $1.2m, because they’re not going to get any Centrelink (benefits) and have to live off their own money,” Mr Marinis

Mr Marinis said the wide-ranging CGT changes were “all done for political purposes”.

“It’s a tax revenue grab – it’s not about housing, because why did they pick on everything else?” he said.

“They want to raise more money so they can keep spending more than they should.”

Mr Marinis said rather than worry about the valley of superannuation pain, people might simply pump more money into super, which is CGT exempt for retirees aged over 60.

“There is no right or wrong. Even if you’ve got more than the $1.1m threshold you can retire early, retire at 60, and self-fund your retirement and glide into an age pension at age 67,” he said.

“There always are unintended consequences of legislation, things the propeller-heads in Canberra didn’t think of.

“They come up with all these ideas but it never stays the same, because people think of alternative ways to structure themselves.”