Taxes

[Bruce Tuncks]

Increasing taxes will be the only way to pay for the coronavirus costs. Will Morrison bite the bullet and start taxing the wealth of the elderly? For example, increasing the land tax and including the family home?

My advice would be to not even try this without the support of the ALP. If they won't support it, call them irresponsible and have an election.

As long as they don't tax our planes. ( actually at the time I bought the Jabiru kit, planes were tax free but there was a 26% tax on gliders. The Jabiru kit, plus the hangar kit, was less than the sales tax on a Ventus 2 )

[old man emu]

I notice that ScoMo has approved some sort of funding relief for landlords. Provided, of course, that the property has a value greater than $750,000. Bad luck for the majority of single residence landlords who are providing rental accommodation for a large portion of the renting public. Never let it be said that ScoMo abandons his mates.

[Marty_d]

Haven't you heard that higher taxes is totally against the LNP world view?

 

Mind you so are most of the policies they've had to put in to deal with this crisis, and kudos to them for doing so.

 

It's going to be really interesting to see how long this refreshing bipartisanship continues. I think that when it comes to paying the piper, the parties will retreat to their standard positions a little. There may be pressure from the younger members of society for policies such as structural reform to franking credits, including the family home, even inheritance taxes or death duties.

[Yenn]

I really cannot understand what the government is doing money wise. Pensioners are given $750 and they already get their pension. A great number of them would own their own homes and have little debt.

A lot of poorly paid workers have lost their jobs and may not be eligible for help.

Why is more going to the pensioners, when really they are less needy. Where are they going to spend that $750 dollars?

[red750]

There you go again, complaining about franking credits, which are simply a refund of overpaid tax.

 

My wife bought a few shares in her employer, CBA, Bank when she worked, as a form of saving. Those shares pay a dividend at the end of the year based on profits. The employer could pay the dividend directly to the shareholder (my wife), and she would have to pay tax on them at her normal tax rate. Instead, the company withholds the tax and pays it to the ATO, just as your employer deducts tax from your wages. So the dividend she receives from the company is AFTER TAX money. However the tax deducted is done so at the company tax rate. If a shareholder is on a lower tax rate, they have effectively paid more tax than they would have by the first method, and the franking credits are the means by which they claim a refund. She still has to complete a tax return stating the gross amount earned and the amount of tax withheld. They are NOT gratuitous payments by the ATO. Conversely, if you are on a higher tax rate than the company rate, you have to make up the shortfall.

[willedoo]

There's a few imbalances in our tax system. One of them is capital gains, whereby only the primary residence plus two hectares of land are exempt. You can have the a*rse out of your pants and pay CGT if you own more than two hectares when you sell, but someone with a house worth 30 million dollars doesn't pay a cent if it's under 2 hectares and they've owned it for more than 12 months.

[Marty_d]

There you go again, complaining about franking credits, which are simply a refund of overpaid tax.

 

My wife bought a few shares in her employer, CBA, Bank when she worked, as a form of saving. Those shares pay a dividend at the end of the year based on profits. The employer could pay the dividend directly to the shareholder (my wife), and she would have to pay tax on them at her normal tax rate. Instead, the company withholds the tax and pays it to the ATO, just as your employer deducts tax from your wages. So the dividend she receives from the company is AFTER TAX money. However the tax deducted is done so at the company tax rate. If a shareholder is on a lower tax rate, they have effectively paid more tax than they would have by the first method, and the franking credits are the means by which they claim a refund. She still has to complete a tax return stating the gross amount earned and the amount of tax withheld. They are NOT gratuitous payments by the ATO. Conversely, if you are on a higher tax rate than the company rate, you have to make up the shortfall.

In their original 1987 form they were designed to compensate shareholders at tax time. It was only in 2001 that John Howard extended the scheme to people who didn't actually pay tax.

When Labor took their plan to the last election, people receiving a pension or part-pension would be exempt from the change. So there would have been no difference to your wife's situation.

However the scheme is mainly being used by people with millions in super to get cash back from the ATO despite not paying any to start with.

[spacesailor]

How about making All Profits pay the same tax rate.

And no cheating by lawyers to reduce those $ millions big corporation,s get away with.

spacesailor

[willedoo]

How about making All Profits pay the same tax rate.

Like Joh's idea of flat tax. Russia does it, 13% flat tax. Only works in theory though.

 

And no cheating by lawyers to reduce those $ millions big corporation,s get away with.

 

More chance of seeing a pig go flying past.

[Bruce Tuncks]

What about increasing the GST and removing exemptions?

I remember being sucked in by the promise of replacing other taxes with the GST. But it is a fair tax to the extent that even rich people pay it most of the time when they shop.

Remember there are many billions needed to pay for the virus spending.

[Marty_d]

No, GST is not a fair tax.

 

It's a tax on consumption. Someone on the dole has no choice but to spend 100% of their income, thereby paying 10% tax (obviously some things are exempt but for the purposes of comparison...)

On the other side, your CEO "earning" millions will never need to spend more than a fraction of their income on the essentials of life, therefore on the same types of things they NEED to spend money on they are possibly only spending a fraction of a percent of their income.

 

The only truly fair way to tax is a proportional scale which takes into account not only the person's income but also assets, investments, trusts, etc. And when it comes to companies then the tax should be on profits made in Australia with no ability to shift profits to countries with different tax regimes.

[Yenn]

Those millionaires are also spending their money overseas and not paying GST on it.

The average bloke has a holiday at say the Gold Coast and pays GST on accommodation , transport and entertainment, plus eating out. The fat cat goes overseas and only pays on that part of transportation he has to buy in Aus. All the rest is GST free.

[old man emu]

We would probably need to pay less personal tax if a government forbade profits earned in Australia from leaving the country before tax was paid at Australian tax rates.

 

Applying tax like that might reduce the amount of foreign investment in the beginning, but by applying the money to the development of the Nation in the way of health, education and transport would soon start the GDP on an upward track. That would create investment from overseas as one of the most positive things about Australia is that our system of government is one of he most stable in the world. We might change political philosophies occasionally, but we do it with the pen, not the sword.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I still say that the GST is a better tax than we had before. I do accept the criticisms though.

And OME is right and we don't give ourselves the credit we should. Here's a few trivia items:

1. What country has the longest reliable rainfall records on the planet? Answer, Australia.

2. What city had the first proper modern sewage system ( ie the poo is separate from the storm water )... answer, Adelaide

3. What country first gave women the vote? answer= NZ, but second was Australia

4. What country had the highest per capita income in 1900? answer= Argentina, but close second was Australia.

[spacesailor]

A lot of people I know.

Having a business number, buy most of what they need on their business credit card.

AND NO GST IS PAYED.

[willedoo]

4. What country had the highest per capita income in 1900? answer= Argentina, but close second was Australia.

 

That must have been due to wool production. Patagonia had vast sheep stations before the wool trade went bust. Another trivial fact, Argentina has the highest Welsh speaking population outside Wales.

[Yenn]

Patagonia may have the highest Welsh speaking population even including Wales. I lived right on the English Welsh border in the fifties and the no of Welsh speakers was quite low in Wales.

There was a push to increase the use of the language and my sister in law was taught in Welsh and English.

[spacesailor]

How much better to have been taught " Esperanto " the new language from the scientist.

( England Tried to teach us numbskulls french )

spacesailor

Edited May 10, 2020 by Guest

[willedoo]

Yenn, I think there's been quite a big increase in Welsh since then. More so in the north, I think. It might be about 20% can speak Welsh, but I don't know how many speak it as a first language. I was surprised to read a short while back the figure on the number of high schools that operate with Welsh as the no.1 language. I don't have the exact figure, but it was over 200.

 

I'd bet the Argentinian Welsh language would vary a bit from the original as they've been there for a few generations.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Patagonia may have the highest Welsh speaking population even including Wales. I lived right on the English Welsh border in the fifties and the no of Welsh speakers was quite low in Wales.

There was a push to increase the use of the language and my sister in law was taught in Welsh and English.

 

Ahh.. but in Northern Wales, they only speak Welsh.. at least when English people walk into the pubs.. When they realised we were Aussies, they quickly learned how to speak English ;-)

Edited May 10, 2020 by Guest

[old man emu]

Since a lot of my DNA comes from Cornwall, I'm glad that Cornish has been saved. There are currently an estimated 3,000 speakers of Cornish, 2,000 of whom claim fluency, according to a survey commissioned by the Cornish Language Strategy project in 2008. In the 2011 UK census 600 people in England and Wales declared Cornish as their main language. Cornish language, alphabet and pronunciation

[facthunter]

reply to#20. Ah, but they'd never learn to speak stryne. If you are away for few years you need to do the updates or just grunt a bit, rock your head and say Yeahno , a few 'F" expletives and tail off and you might get away with it for weeks.. Nev

[Yenn]

When I lived in Britain, that is pre 1961 You could have trouble understanding people speaking English if you moved 50 miles. In rural areas they used different words for things, so you could carry your scuvin down a loke, but not in the same place. scuvin is a muck fork in Shropshire and loke is a lane in Norfolk.

[facthunter]

A few doctors have asked me what part of London I'm from. In my whole life I've spent a max total of 5 days there. You pick a little bit of accent up from any place you stay a while in. Takes more than a couple of days though. Nev

[willedoo]

When I lived in Britain, that is pre 1961 You could have trouble understanding people speaking English if you moved 50 miles. In rural areas they used different words for things, so you could carry your scuvin down a loke, but not in the same place. scuvin is a muck fork in Shropshire and loke is a lane in Norfolk.

My great grandparents came out here from Shropshire; I wonder if they had a scuvin. At the time they left in the early 1880's, there were people only ten miles away who lived in Shropshire near the border but spoke Welsh. Mainly in the bulge west of Oswestry.