The Abbott Government

[Knobby22]

As Abbott said yesterday, he will be able to give tax cuts in 3 years. I wonder where they will go?

I have no problem with reducing entitlements but the pain should be more evenly shared.

 

[trainspotter]

After they avoid their taxes with super, employer/taxpayer funded cars, family trusts, avoidance schemes...

Cry me a river ... It is still coming out of their pockets and they still are paying more in tax.

Taxable income 2013/14

$0 – $18,200 = Nil

$18,201– $37,000 = 19c for each $1 over $18,200

$37,001 - $80,000 = $3,572 plus 32.5c for each $1 over $37,000 = 9.65% TAX

$80,001 - $180,000 = $17,547 plus 37c for each $1 over $80,000 = 21.93% TAX

$180,001 and over = $54,547 plus 45c for every $1 over $180,000 = 30.31% TAX

Add a further 2% onto the taxable income of those over 180k and they are now paying OVER 32% TAX

*Figures are rubbery at best as I am late for a meeting but you get the gist*

 

[CanOz]

Its funny, my neighbors here are all from Michigan (up to a dozen at times), the "thumb" actually. They're all very much hard working mid westerners, with a no nonsense attitude. Pretty conservative, mostly republican. We met up with an old friend of mine from Australia, in Thailand, a Union guy. My Michigan friends just cannot get over the benefits for a tradesman/union guys in Australia. I mean these Michigan people are on less than half the wage, net net that my Australian mate was on (and he had no trade).

The guys from Michigan are all over Obama's big government and social handouts, more and more tax and healthcare levies. They really hate the entitlements that the GM boys got when they bailed out. Such a different view that you get from the working class in the US. They're all for business getting breaks so they can hire more people...

Its hardly the model for a successful economy given their track record, but its interesting the difference between the working class (blue collar or whatever) in the two countries....

 

[SirRumpole]

Cry me a river ... It is still coming out of their pockets and they still are paying more in tax.

Taxable income 2013/14

$0 – $18,200 = Nil

$18,201– $37,000 = 19c for each $1 over $18,200

$37,001 - $80,000 = $3,572 plus 32.5c for each $1 over $37,000 = 9.65% TAX

$80,001 - $180,000 = $17,547 plus 37c for each $1 over $80,000 = 21.93% TAX

$180,001 and over = $54,547 plus 45c for every $1 over $180,000 = 30.31% TAX

Add a further 2% onto the taxable income of those over 180k and they are now paying OVER 32% TAX

*Figures are rubbery at best as I am late for a meeting but you get the gist*

Funny how Hockey left alone negative gearing, family trusts and super concessions favouring the wealthy, and hit those mainly on low incomes.

 

[SirRumpole]

Work, save, invest...like everybody else.

I have, I've paid my taxes and don't get any government benefits, but that doesn't mean I have no compassion for those, especially pensioners who have paid their taxes and still get hit.

 

[sptrawler]

As Abbott said yesterday, he will be able to give tax cuts in 3 years. I wonder where they will go?

I have no problem with reducing entitlements but the pain should be more evenly shared.

The 'white paper' should have more info when it is completed.
My guess, for what it's worth, is there will be increases in income tax rates, also super and if the economy is picking up, negative gearing.
Any tax cuts I would guess would go toward business, to try and further stimulate jobs and consumer sentiment.

It is a real balancing act, people aren't spending, so gst revenue is falling. Companies are laying people off so income tax reciepts are falling. Small business is falling over, due to high costs, rent electricity and wages.

Government income is falling rapidly and the welfare costs are increasing, it makes it hard. But to keep allowing the debt to blow out adds to the interest bill, which puts further pressure on.

It isn't going to be sunshine and lolly pops for awhile.IMO

But we are still resource rich and have a relatively small population, so the good times will return.

 

[SirRumpole]

The 'white paper' should have more info when it is completed.

So the Henry review was just a Communist Manifesto was it ?

 

[Julia]

My niece has managed to get into medicine. She is a country girl from an average family with both parents working bringing in less than $100000 a year.

If she is already enrolled, as I understand it, her situation is unchanged, except perhaps an increase down the track in the interest rate on the taxpayer funded loan.

Under the new budget she can expect to owe $180000 at the end of her degree.

Are you calculating this on the basis of her situation being the same now as it was before the Budget announcement or on the basis of what future students, not already enrolled, will pay?
Perhaps consider that before long, after she has graduated, she will have earning capacity of around the $180K mark per year.

Baby boomers got free education. I think this is very unfair and I fear for my children.

At the time that at least the first tranche of baby boomers finished high school, very few of them went on to university, amongst girls probably less than 5%. Nurses were trained within hospitals and teachers went to teacher training colleges. Now both these occupations have become university degrees, along with many, many other degrees which would never have been considered valid a few decades ago and which, imo, have devalued the whole notion of a university education.

Just to repeat a question I've asked before, Knobby, if individuals actually receiving the university education are not to pay for it themselves, albeit on a very cheap taxpayer funded loan which is not required to even start to be paid back until they are earning over $50K, who do you think should pay for it?

Now there are mooted super changes etc.

Well, if some of the huge tax advantages which continue to apply for people with many millions in Super were to be curtailed, I'd entirely support that. It would also address some of your concern about the rich getting off so lightly.

I wish we could call another election. My only hope is Clive Palmer who seems to have more interest in the average person.

What ideas do you believe Mr Palmer has that will so benefit Australia? Do you give any credence to the suggestion that he is entirely self-interested, a rich person, bored with his current dinosaurs and other toys, who is having a bit of fun in politics. Not just fun, but enthusiastic about his opportunity to take his revenge against any conservative sector of government, after the Qld LNP threw him out following his incessant and unreasonable demands to extend his own influence and acquire favours.

Have you been aware of the way he has trashed the Sunshine Coast resort, locking hundreds of investors out of their own villas there? And the now pretty nasty situation with his Chinese partners? His profane and obscene language toward them?

Perhaps my perception of Mr Palmer is faulty, but I do not see someone with the best interests of Australia at heart. Rather, a greedy, over-indulged egocentric person capable of deluding many naive Australians that he is the answer to their political prayers.

Knobby, before you get more upset, think about the scenario which takes place all the time at an Asian market.
The vendor for the item you like, when you ask the price, will set that price at considerably above what he actually expects to receive for it. Your offer will similarly be set at much less than you expect to pay for it.
A bit of haggling later, both of you end up with a compromise which is more or less acceptable to you both.

Perhaps regard this Budget stuff as along similar lines.
The government purposely leaked most of it long before delivery day so reaction could be gauged before it went to the printer.
So they knew Labor, the Greens and some of the Independents, would rule out supporting many of the measures in the Senate.
Exactly as they had predicted.
So the actual announced Budget would, imo, never have been expected to come into being.

Allowing yourself to get so upset about what mostly isn't going to happen is unnecessary and just causing yourself avoidable grief.

As observed by others, the media has a huge amount to answer for in their pathetic lack of focus on the real issues and their encouragement of the general hysteria. Shame on them.
ABC Radio has had some fair and reasonable analysis, but the commercial media should be sacked en masse.

 

[Calliope]

As Abbott said yesterday, he will be able to give tax cuts in 3 years. I wonder where they will go?

I have no problem with reducing entitlements but the pain should be more evenly shared.

I suspect you must be in this bracket that you referred to;

The poorest families pay most in budget.

No doubt you must be feeling the pain when you say you can't sleep at night. I guess we take our entitlements for granted and get very upset when they are threatened.

I got a shock this morning myself when I read this headline in the Courier-Mail;

Almost 40,000 householders to lose guaranteed 8c solar feed-in tariff after new laws pass parliament

I breathed a sigh of relief when I read on, that my 44c feed-in tariff which AGL pays me would not be affected.(yet?). I regard this as an "entitlement" even though it is subsidised by other consumers, in the same way as your entitlements are subsidised by taxpayers.

 

[trainspotter]

Funny how Hockey left alone negative gearing, family trusts and super concessions favouring the wealthy, and hit those mainly on low incomes.

Not funny at all Horace ... socialism is dead and buried. The age of entitlements is over, we simply cannot afford to keep paying people to do less and less.

Hey why stop at the wealthy individual tax payers? Why not go after the big boys like Apple who paid 193 million to the ATO on 27 billion ? Oh that's right .. they would just pass the increase cost onto the consumer

Negative gearing? Here's what would happen:- The 2010 Henry Review said negative *gearing was one of a plethora of inefficient taxes, including stamp duty, and called for it to be abolished. But it said any changes to *negative gearing or the capital gains tax "may in the short term reduce residential property investment" and that "in a market facing *supply constraints, these reforms could place further pressure on the availability of *affordable rental accommodation within the private rental market".

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/fede...ive-gearing-20140411-36him.html#ixzz32PjjJGcQ

Keating in 1985 tightened NG and capital city prices plummeted. Yep ... let's get rid of NG

Family Trusts? Yep let's get rid of the Rineharts, the Obeids and the Tinklers who deliberately minimise their billions of dollars being siphoned off through these entities. All for it. Should be a limit of money and or assets allowed to be placed into this tax avoidance scheme.

Superannuation concessions ? Ya gotta be kidding me right ? So I am going to be penalised for placing money into my superannuation so when I retire I have enough money to retire on and NOT have to get a pension from the government? That is the most stupidest notion I have heard bandied around yet. Everyone is taxed at 15% but because people earning more $$$ have more SGC going into super they pay less tax as their overall taxable income has been reduced. FFS ... why not just offer everyone a stipend of the money they have in super and the government takes over the balance payable on death

 

[SirRumpole]

So the actual announced Budget would, imo, never have been expected to come into being.

With respect to you Julia, that makes this Budget even worse.

Mucking around with peoples lives for the hell of it ?

Playing games with the electorate is a sure sign of arrogant, shallow and smug fools who don't deserve the office that people were tricked into giving them.

It's the same arrogant self delusion that comes out with statements like "people must have misheard us when we said..."

 

[sptrawler]

So the Henry review was just a Communist Manifesto was it ?

Not at all, but it certainly isn't current, no doubt it will be referenced.
A bit like Gonski, when it was written Labor in all probability, told them money isn't a problem.
Therefore now money is a problem, one would use Gonski as a reference, not as a be all to end all document.

 

[SirRumpole]

Superannuation concessions ? Ya gotta be kidding me right ? So I am going to be penalised for placing money into my superannuation so when I retire I have enough money to retire on and NOT have to get a pension from the government? That is the most stupidest notion I have heard bandied around yet. Everyone is taxed at 15% but because people earning more $$$ have more SGC going into super they pay less tax as their overall taxable income has been reduced. FFS ... why not just offer everyone a stipend of the money they have in super and the government takes over the balance payable on death

I'm sure you are more expert than me on the subject, but others don't agree with you

http://www.smh.com.au/business/bank...exploiting-superannuation-20140522-38po9.html

And on NG, Keating abolished it it one go, he should have phased it out over 5+ years.

 

[sptrawler]

With respect to you Julia, that makes this Budget even worse.

Mucking around with peoples lives for the hell of it ?

Playing games with the electorate is a sure sign of arrogant, shallow and smug fools who don't deserve the office that people were tricked into giving them.

It's the same arrogant self delusion that comes out with statements like "people must have misheard us when we said..."

You are starting to sound like the media.IMO

 

[trainspotter]

I'm sure you are more expert than me on the subject, but others don't agree with you

http://www.smh.com.au/business/bank...exploiting-superannuation-20140522-38po9.html

And on NG, Keating abolished it it one go, he should have phased it out over 5+ years.

Mucking around with the superannuation laws would increase people NOT contributing to the scheme thusly placing the burden back on the government to find the money to pay for the pension.

I just love how the news article has so many anonymous tax advisers and superannuation lawyers willing to talk to them

In 1985, Labor tightened negative gearing rules, and Keating wanted to take the next step and scrap it altogether. Keating got rolled, spectacularly. In 1987, Labor reversed the tightening and the generous provisions applying to negative gearing pre-1985 were restored.

He did not abolish it at all it in one go as stated by your good self Horace.

 

[SirRumpole]

Mucking around with the superannuation laws would increase people NOT contributing to the scheme thusly placing the burden back on the government to find the money to pay for the pension.

Oh really ? Millionaires might stop paying super and go on the pension ? Even if they stop paying super they can sell an investment property or two and not worry. An assets test would stop them getting the pension anyway.

 

[trainspotter]

Oh really ? Millionaires might stop paying super and go on the pension ? Even if they stop paying super they can sell an investment property or two and not worry. An assets test would stop them getting the pension anyway.

Did you even read the article you posted?

Others are worried the government will go too far with any tweaks to the system.
Nexia's Ian Stone said most of the self-managed super funds he sees have between $500,000 and $2 million in them and are being used by aspirational middle-class workers who are still in wealth creation mode.
With a government asking people to self-fund more aspects of their lives, Mr Stone said people are already nervous about putting too much of their savings into super out of fear governments will fiddle with policy settings.

So if they closed the loopholes on the uber rich is not the issue. The issue is if they muck around with the super laws then "joe average" would NOT contribute further then they have to under law to superannuation.

Asset tests for pensions http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/assets

DYOR in future Horace

 

[SirRumpole]

So if they closed the loopholes on the uber rich is not the issue.

So why haven't they even done that ?

 

[trainspotter]

So why haven't they even done that ?

HTFSIK ????? Oh wait ... it is on their to do list:-

Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has flagged possible changes to superannuation rules before the next election.

In last week's budget the Government confirmed the retirement age would be lifted to 70 by the year 2035.

During an appearance on the ABC's Q&A program last night, Mr Hockey told the audience he was now looking at areas such as superannuation to better prepare Australians for the change.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-...o-superannuation-before-next-election/5463618

 

[SirRumpole]

During an appearance on the ABC's Q&A program last night, Mr Hockey told the audience he was now looking at areas such as superannuation to better prepare Australians for the change.

That is not going to help this

Mr Stone said people are already nervous about putting too much of their savings into super out of fear governments will fiddle with policy settings.

Is it ?