freediver wrote on May 25^th, 2008 at 2:35pm:

Actually I would say that it is indeed very difficult to get by on $150,000 with a mortgage.

Firstly because people with $150,000 salaries generally purchase homes worth far more than $300,000, I would say probably worth at least $600,000-$1,000,000.

In addition to that, as I mentioned before from that $150,000 after tax they only get about $102,500 P.A.

a $50,000+ PA interest rate on $102,500 a year is quite a lot of money when you consider the higher cost of living without having the government benefits of lower wages.

It's an unfair system when it comes to taxes, who would want to be productive when 33% of your hard earned money is taken away from you?

That's why people cheat on their taxes, earn money under the table and send money to untraceable offshore accounts..

freediver wrote on May 25^th, 2008 at 4:03pm:

But I still don't see the justification to take such a huge amount of money away from people who earn it..

Its an outrageous amount of money.

freediver wrote on May 25^th, 2008 at 4:56pm:

My point is that we shouldn't have taxes so high in the first place, I don't believe it is the position of the government to hold our hands and feed us and tell us how to spend our hard earned money from the cradle to the grave. We need to cut our spending and live within our means as a nation. We shouldn't spend money where we don't have to. That means cutting back money spent our foreign policy to what we need, bringing our military home to stay and defend Australia and not sending them to wars when Australian national security is not in danger. And in other places where we don't need to spend so much money.

We need smaller government (less bureaucracy means less money wasted, lower taxes, more incentives for people to work and less welfare unless people absolutely need it and if they do need it make it more efficient. 

Look at it this way:

Income tax brings in about $126 billion. But Social Security and Welfare costs us close to that at $102 billion.

Company and petroleum resource rent taxation brings us in $76 billion, but government services costs us $79 billion.

Sales taxes bring in $48 billion but healthcare costs us $46 billion

Petroleum Excise brings in $16 billion and Defence costs us $17.8 billion

Customs duty, other excise and other taxation brings in $17 billion but education costs us $18 billion.

Don't tax someone on who's earning $75,000 a year $17,100 of their salary leaving them with only $57,000, it will discourage them from striving to earn so much, instead charge them at the maximum $8500, and allow them to negotiate good private health cover and other benefits with their employer as a health care plan and allow them to spend their money how they see fit. Them having private health cover and other benefits will take the load off of the public healthcare system and ensure that people who are less well off can have better quality services available for them in public hospitals. It will also make them more inclined to work because of the benefits the companies provide.

And If someone is earning $150,000 a year, don't tax them $47,500 of that, tax them at the max $20,000 so they can do something similar to the above.

The lower the taxes the higher the productivity because people will work harder as taxes wont burden them as much.

Also.. With fuel at the pump costing us $1.40/lt. Of that fuel excise costs us about 65c to 70c/lt of fuel at the service station. If you cut that excise in half our fuel will cost us about 97.5c/lt. That would bring a huge amount of relief to Australian families.

Spend less money on welfare. Those people who are dole bludging and aren't incapable of working should have an expiry date on their welfare payments and PROPER assistance getting into work including training and careers counseling so that they can work and be more productive (it may seem like your just taking it from one giving them money to spending money on them in the first place, but it will make sure they stay working thus bringing in more revenue from taxes). This will allow assistance to pensioners who desperately need it to be increased.

We can cut taxes and spending in a way where we can be more efficient and more people will want to work. This will bring more prosperity to Australia because everyone will earn more.

That's my opinion anyway.

Sprintcyclist wrote on May 25^th, 2008 at 10:29pm:

That sounds great. But keeping troubles far from our door doesn't need to include invading sovereign lands. The Australian Defence Force's should be defending our national security interests at home and in our own region. Not wasting money or putting our troops in harms way by sending them, jets and ships to places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

Supporting our troops is a very simple thing to do.. Don't put their lives at risk unless you absolutely have to.

Sprintcyclist wrote on May 25^th, 2008 at 11:28pm:

Yeah, Hitler gave the same excuse to the Germans, that to defend Germany it was important to do preemptive strikes and defend the homeland from outside of it's borders by attacking other nations. They fell for that crap too.

And how do you mean they aren't my troops? I pay my taxes and am an Australian citizen. So I have every right to say they are our troops.