Redmond Neck wrote on Jan 3
rd, 2015 at 10:42am:
John Hewson, former Liberal leader, economist and now professor with the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, underlines the point: “The tax cuts Howard and Costello gave are now costing [the budget] about $30 billion a year, and the deficit’s $40 billion.”
Without those cuts and the $9 billion Hockey gave – unasked for and against the will of treasury – to the Reserve Bank, says Hewson, “the deficit problem wouldn’t exist”.
And that’s without including some $40 billion in tax concessions for superannuation, which accrue overwhelmingly to the wealthiest 20 per cent of taxpayers.
that is rather a simplistic view that typically comes from ivory tower economists. if you reversed those tax cuts almost everyone would be paying around 20% more tax that presently. Current take is around $165Bpa in income tax. to add $30B to it requires increasing income tax by 20%. so why not increase taxes by 30% instead? since increasing income tax seems to not have any impact on the economy according to nutters like this why not make it 40%?
it is a basic tenet of economics - or at least real world economics - is that taxes are a drag on economic growth. they are a necessary evil, but they are an evil just the same. So the answer is in the balance of keeping them as low as possible yet meeting the legitimate needs of govt. Raising taxes is a cheats way of temporarily raising more money but dragging the economy down further. But it is worth noting that cutting expenditure never gets mentioned unless it is about something that affects only the high income earners.
I'd love to see you boofheads explain to low income earners why you are increasing their income tax by 20%.