Sydney Morning Herald
November 20 2017

Scott Morrison urges company CEOs to support government's tax cuts



Federal Labor is maintaining its opposition to the government's plan for further cuts to company tax after the treasurer called on CEOs to take up the fight for tax cuts on its behalf. 

Treasurer Scott Morrison has written to hundreds of corporate leaders asking for their support.





But Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says his party won't budge on the government's proposal to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 per cent over the next decade. 

"We are not going to give multinationals a reduction in their tax. We don't think that's the way to go," Mr Shorten told the Nine Network on Monday.


"We would rather look after ordinary people than give the top end of town a tax cut."

Mr Morrison criticised the opposition, saying Labor would increase taxes on business and investment.


"Business knows this is the right way forward and can't afford to sit on the fence when it comes to supporting policies like our enterprise tax plan," Mr Morrison told News Corp Australia.




The government has so far legislated a tax cut for businesses with turnovers of up to $50 million, leaving the remainder on a rate of 30 per cent.

But further cuts face a roadblock in the Senate with Labor and the Greens opposed to the full plan.

The Treasurer's plea comes ahead of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's speech to the Business Council of Australia to be delivered on Monday evening.

A survey by the council found 81 per cent of CEOs said they would increase investment if taxes were cut, while 70 per cent said they would hire more staff.

"Every day that Australia delays action risks putting us further behind the rest of the world," Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said.

With boring monotony the gloom and doom BlackDay pumps out the contrived GetUp! anti Australian propaganda.

And the corrupt unions that control every aspect of the equally corrupt Labor Party are trying to close down ALL industry here in Australia.

This government are obscene, the money they have raped from education health superannuation pensions the unemployed and the disabled just so they can throw money at their wealthy business mates that don't even need it is disgusting.

whiteknight wrote on Nov 20^th, 2017 at 5:13pm:


Shorten is just being cute. It was once ALP policy. The about face came about as soon as the coalition adopted it. To anybody that actually understands the macroeconomic effects of corporate taxes would understand that his intransigence is more hurtful to the wage earner than it is to the owners of the capital.

Retained earnings are the basis of productivity growth. Just so happens that productivity is at historical lows with the capital side in negative territory. The Shorten solution is to keep taxing productivity. Pan it if you want but stop bleating because wages growth is non-existent.

The reform is actually rather important.

Dnarever wrote on Nov 20^th, 2017 at 6:43pm:


Could you explain how a cut to the corporate tax rate benefits only wealthy people.

perceptions_now wrote on Nov 20^th, 2017 at 7:15pm:

The worst tax-dodge in Australia is the compulsory super, and the generous tax concessions to the rich.
The imputation credit is the other tax-dodge, and most of it goes to the super-rich retirees, as the article below shows.

Government dodges the super elephant.
Superannuation tax breaks described by Australia Institute as the Hindenburg of the federal budget
AM
By James Glenday
Audio: Think tank wants big change to retirees' benefits (AM)
"Superannuation concessions are unfair ... the top 5 per cent of income earners get a third of the benefit, and the bottom 20 per cent get literally nothing."
The report suggests scrapping concessions entirely, introducing a universal or non-means-tested age pension and upping the current rate by about 7.5 per cent to $26,273 a year for singles and nearly $39,611 for couples.
The Australia Institute says that plan would cost about $52 billion annually, leaving the budget between $13 billion and $22 billion better off. It says more money would flow to women and poor people.
"You often hear people say the more people spend on superannuation tax concessions, the more we save on the age pension," Dr Denniss said.
"In theory that's possible, but in practice it's just not the case. If it were the case, the combined cost of these two schemes would be flat-lining."
Furthermore, as the super assets are growing, and more and more frauds are reported, it will reach a point of “Too big too fail”, the government will pick up the tab, while most of the funds managers will walk away as multimillionaires.
The Australian government provides a safety net of the age pension to everybody of pension age and residential qualification, therefore if a “Self funded retirees” assets or income falls below the cut-off level of the age pension, he/she is entitled to a part-pension yet at the lower end of the pension scheme, a part-pensioner starts losing $0.50 of every dollar of the age pension, once a single pensioner earns $4,000 or a couple $7,000, keeping the retirees on very modest extra income virtually on the poverty line.
How can the Australian government get away with this blatant discrimination of the age pensioners; because Associations like COTA, ACOSS, SCOA, SA Superannuants, all other Associations affiliated with ACPSRO and the Unions fail to represent the interest of their lower income or wages members, because the leaders of this Associations benefit more from the governments generosity towards the high-income and assets benefits them in the same way as the politicians.

It is what the government is spending the money on that is unaffordable. They will have to spend less. It really is that simple.

Sir lastnail wrote on Nov 21^st, 2017 at 8:17pm:



yep - borrowing $100 million per day just to stop
our economy from collapsing.