1. Disability has been rorted for years, not being funny but I do know it has. (I could have qualified, but chose not to).
So that's a good reason to cut off someone under the age of 30 from income support?
2.Aged pension, they were only going to change the indexing. Currently it linked to acerage wage, they wanted it linked to cpi.
The current system gives pensioners the higher of average wage growth or pensioner cpi. basically heads they win tails tax payers lose.
With regards the pension if someone 55 gives up their job, travels the world, buys porsches and blow all their money, qualify for a taxpayer funded income of $32,000 per year indexed to the average wage. Sounds good to me.
Interesting to see how sustainable that is when aged support is already 15% of the budget.
3. So when the tax white paper comes out and the tax scales go back to the baby boomer early years, you'le be fine with that. 50k = 60% in todays terms that would be about the $180k/annum.
Why would that be a sensible and sustainable proposal? Why not target all the areas that we choose not to tax? Why not reign in NG? Why not reign in super tax concessions? Why not move the tax revenue from direct taxes to indirect taxes like the henry tax review suggested and which the OECD and IMF and pretty much anyone with a basic understanding of how taxation works is recommending?
The reason they are waiting for a white paper on tax, probably is because the aren't as arrogant/ignorant or stupid as the last government and don't want to shoot from the hip.
That seems novel, as everyone today seems to have all the answers, the problem is most haven't lived long enough to understand the questions.
So you believe there is not a single recommending in the Henry tax review that could have been used in the budget?
http://taxreview.treasury.gov.au/co...ons/papers/final_report_part_1/chapter_12.htm
138 recommendations and the Govt, like Labor, has chosen to ignore them. How is that rational when we're told there's a budget crisis? It's only rational when political ideology trumps good policy.
How about
Recommendation 10: Consideration should be given to a revised regime to prevent the alienation of personal services income that would extend to all entities earning a significant proportion of their business income from the personal services of their owner-managers, whether in employee-like or non-employee-like cases. This regime may also apply an arm's length rule to deductions arising from payments to associates to ensure deductions reflect the value of services provided.
Recommendation 13: Gift deductibility should be retained, with the deductibility threshold raised from $2 to $25.
Recommendation 18: The tax on superannuation contributions in the fund should be abolished. Employer superannuation contributions should be treated as income in the hands of the individual, taxed at marginal personal income tax rates and receive a flat-rate refundable tax offset.
- An offset should be provided for all superannuation contributions up to an annual cap of $25,000 (indexed). The offset should be set so the majority of taxpayers do not pay more than 15 per cent tax on their contributions. The cap should be doubled for people aged 50 or older.
- An annual cap on total contributions should continue to apply.
- The offset should replace the superannuation co-contribution and superannuation spouse contribution tax offset.
- Compulsory superannuation contributions made by employers should not reduce eligibility for income support or family assistance payments. They should also not form part of the calculation for child support.
Recommendation 51: Ideally, there would be no role for any stamp duties, including conveyancing stamp duties, in a modern Australian tax system. Recognising the revenue needs of the States, the removal of stamp duty should be achieved through a switch to more efficient taxes, such as those levied on broad consumption or land bases. Increasing land tax at the same time as reducing stamp duty has the additional benefit of some offsetting impacts on asset prices.
Recommendation 52: Given the efficiency benefits of a broad land tax, it should be levied on as broad a base as possible. In order to tax more valuable land at higher rates, consideration should be given to levying land tax using an increasing marginal rate schedule, with the lowest rate being zero, with thresholds determined by the per-square-metre value.
Recommendation 53: In the long run, the land tax base should be broadened to eventually include all land. If this occurs, low-value land, such as most agricultural land, would not face a land tax liability where its value per square metre is below the lowest rate threshold.
Recommendation 54: There are a number of incremental reforms that could potentially improve the operation of land tax, including:
- ensuring that land tax applies per land holding, not on an entity's total holding, in order to promote investment in land development;
- eliminating stamp duties on commercial and industrial properties in return for a broad land tax on those properties; and
- investigating various transitional arrangements necessary to achieve a broader land tax.
Recommendation 135: The Australian government should ensure that the rules governing the development of the Budget encourage trade-offs between tax expenditures and spending programs. Budget decision-making processes should measure and treat tax expenditures and spending programs symmetrically, to ensure that there is no artificial incentive to deliver programs through one mechanism rather than another.
I wont bother to list the other worthy proposals from the review, but there's plenty of them.