Forum

 
  Back to OzPolitic.com   Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register
  Forum Home Album HelpSearch Recent Rules LoginRegister  
 

Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Send Topic Print
Cutting Taxes For Already Wealthy Australians (Read 407 times)
whiteknight
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 7595
melbourne
Gender: male
Cutting Taxes For Already Wealthy Australians
Sep 21st, 2020 at 10:52am
 
Tax cuts for COVID ‘naive’, former Liberal leader John Hewson says in new budget campaign
September 21 2020
New Daily
Fast-tracking tax cuts would leave Australia “a weaker state”, and “fail” the Coalition government’s goals for a post-COVID recovery, according to a blistering new campaign headlined by former Liberal leader John Hewson.   Sad

A former Reserve Bank governor, leading economists, legal experts and immunologist Professor Peter Doherty are among the prominent Australians pleading with Scott Morrison’s government to change tack in order to create jobs and stimulate spending.

Their campaign follows Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s controversial confirmation earlier this month that he was considering bringing forward planned stage two and three tax cuts from 2022 and 2024 to this year.   Sad

Mr Frydenberg’s decision had sparked warnings from economists that the move would detonate an “inequality grenade” in Australia and further entrench the divide between rich and poor.

Dr Hewson is among the critics ramping up pressure on the government to instead spend on infrastructure, services, or shoring up a long-term boost to welfare payments.



“The LNP naively hope tax cuts are good politics, but they won’t be as they increase inequality and fail to ensure job security and increasing wages with our economy still struggling to exit recession,” he said.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Sunday the government was strongly considering including the tax cuts plan in its October 6 budget.

It was also reported that the long-term rate of the JobSeeker welfare payment would not be included in the budget, with an announcement delayed indefinitely.

Dr Hewson – the Coalition’s leader between 1990 and 1994, and now a vocal critic of his party’s federal direction in recent years – has lent his voice to a campaign from progressive think tank The Australia Institute.

“Cutting taxes for already wealthy Australians will undermine the long-term strength of our public services, like health care and education, while doing very little to stimulate economic growth,” said Ben Oquist, TAI’s executive director.

Speaking to The New Daily, Mr Oquist said he was concerned about the “fiscal cliff” Australia faced when JobKeeper and JobSeeker supports were wound back in coming months.

“The economy does need fiscal support, but tax cuts are the very worst option, and particularly the type proposed,” he said.


Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg said the tax cuts were being considered.
“The government said its support for the economy would be temporary and targeted – but these tax cuts are permanent, and are targeted at the wrong people.”

The proposed cuts would strongly flatten the nation’s tax system, with gradual changes to increase the threshold for various brackets and then remove others.

Eventually, everyone earning between $45,000 and $200,000 would pay the same 32.5 per cent tax rate, with those on high incomes to benefit most from lower taxes.

TAI has previously shared modelling done by its economists which show that 91 per cent of the benefit from the 2022 tax cuts would go to the richest 20 per cent of Australians, with the bottom 50 per cent of earners receiving just 3 per cent of the benefit; and that men would get more than double the benefits that would go to women.

“We know wealthy people are less likely to spend and more likely to save, but the permanent damage this will do to the future revenue base, that’s not temporary,” Mr Oquist said.

“It will ultimately lead to a weaker state and less services in future.

“We need good fiscal stimulus, but we need what will give you the biggest chance of boosting aggregate demand and long-term benefits. On both those tests, tax cuts to the top end just fail.”

Mr Oquist said the think tank’s campaign – launching on TV on Monday – was backed by prominent Australians including former RBA governor Bernie Fraser, former deputy RBA governor Stephen Grenville, Australian Council of Social Service CEO Cassandra Goldie, and former Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Michael Keating.


Professor Peter Doherty put his name to the tax cuts campaign.
Dr Grenville said the tax cut plan “would be a weak stimulus” and would “undermine the equitable and progressive tax structure we‘ll need when the COVID crisis is over”.

Mr Fraser said policy makers should be considering economic stimulus that would protect “the most vulnerable groups in those communities [who] are always hit the hardest in major crises like this pandemic”.

About 40 academics and economists have signed on as part of TAI’s campaign.
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
whiteknight
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 7595
melbourne
Gender: male
Re: Cutting Taxes For Already Wealthy Australians
Reply #1 - Sep 21st, 2020 at 11:44am
 
"Those demanding tax cuts today will be demanding service cuts tomorrow," an advertising campaign rolling out from Monday said.   Sad
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Grappler Truth Teller Feller
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 79578
Proud pre-1850's NO Voter
Gender: male
Re: Cutting Taxes For Already Wealthy Australians
Reply #2 - Sep 21st, 2020 at 1:18pm
 
There are far better ways of controlling 'bracket creep' - simply by making it automatic, a simple enough equation.

As an extension, however, as dollar incomes rise and  rise even though they have less value, the need arises for more 'brackets', IF the current system of some level of equality is to be maintained and retained.

Without more brackets at the higher levels, those higher incomes would run away while the rest would stagnate, thus creating the very situation that 'tax brackets' are intended to prevent - a society divided by massive income differentials and thus truly unequal in any and every way, and one that would inevitably lead to the despotism of the rich over the poor, such as is the case in, say, CCP China - much more so than it already exists here.

Similarly to china, our 'political masters' would love to see such a situation, given their effective salary package of $2.5-3m pa, something which permits them to become of the 'rich' class here.. however, just as in CCP China, these same would love to be able to harness every facet of the state towards their own enrichment - for the greater socialist republican good, of course, since trickledown will take care of the peasants receiving their crumbs and bones at the castle door in the deepening snow before cowering in their hovels and caves.......
Back to top
 

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
― John Adams
 
IP Logged
 
Mix_Master
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 999
Gender: male
Re: Cutting Taxes For Already Wealthy Australians
Reply #3 - Sep 21st, 2020 at 3:39pm
 
Plenty of people - myself included - have already talked about the ineffectiveness of income tax cuts as a means to boost consumer spending (and thus drive economic growth).

As Hewson correctly points out, it's more about the optics/politics, than good governance.

But hey...that's what the LNP does, right?

Wouldn't it be nice if, for once, they left a legacy of actual Nation building infrastructure for future generations...?
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Grappler Truth Teller Feller
Gold Member
*****
Offline


Australian Politics

Posts: 79578
Proud pre-1850's NO Voter
Gender: male
Re: Cutting Taxes For Already Wealthy Australians
Reply #4 - Sep 22nd, 2020 at 8:02pm
 
All the rabid ones here will note, for the record, that our personal income tax system is but one plank in the generally socialist platform of this, and many other, nations.  The reason it came about was to prevent a recurrence of the Robber Baron days, where an RB could live on millions and his serfs lived on debt to the company store etc...

Thatcher's whining about paying 90%, the very top end, was all hot air considering that only a tiny portion of a tiny number of incomes actually paid that - just like here - it's not as if your entire income is taxed at the higher level once you reach it.... all BS.

Not such a bad idea though - once you reach a certain point, you pay you whole tax burden at the top rate......  (snuckles) ... that'll start 'em whining...

If you're copping that much and paying that much tax - do the figures - you could get just as much in the hand at a lower rate of income..... but then, of course, you would lose your 'status' of being a 'high income earner'....

Eat my shorts then....
Back to top
 

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
― John Adams
 
IP Logged
 
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Send Topic Print