Election 2016

[dutchroll]

We do Phil. It's called Capital Gains Tax. So if you buy a property for $300k and sell it for $600k you are taxed on your capital gain, but this doesn't apply to your primary residence.

 

It doesn't just apply to houses either. Pretty much anything you bought for more than $10k and sell for a profit, and don't use for the purpose of producing income (ie it doesn't apply to stuff you sell for profit as part of your business - that's just treated as normal taxable income) is subject to the tax. It's a dog's breakfast like most tax legislation and needs a good accountant to sort it out!

 

So what? They spend it, and necessarily pay tax eventually throughout the economy.

I don't think Marty is necessarily talking about about genuine garden variety corporate tax deductions here. I think it's more about multinational tax avoidance and the likes - corporations earning millions of dollars income in Australia but siphoning it through the Bahamas and dodgy shell companies, etc. Heck even companies resident here do it. It's called "contrived arrangements" and it's a means by which big companies deliberately understate their Australian income and tax liabilities. It's also technically illegal, but traditionally hard to prove in court, which is why new laws have come in to try to prevent it.

 

Of course everyone strives to reduce their tax bill. But most don't make stuff up and fabricate overseas entities to do it. I've been criticised myself by colleagues for not claiming a deduction on expenses I never incurred, though there's a loophole which allows some people in my job to do it because they currently don't have to show "proof" of that particular expense (it's not a trivial amount). Their astounding logic is that because they're not (at the moment, but watch this space) being asked to show they're not breaking taxation laws, they can therefore break taxation laws! I have pointed out if they get caught, they're going to be screwed and retrospectively audited back many years, as well as completely stuff it for many others who are doing the right thing.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Thanks Dutch. . . .I understand how CGT works, having been in business for some 35 years; but from what Marty was saying, I thought that he was implying that it didn't apply in OZ. . . which was why I started my response with, "Are you saying. . ."

 

 

[dutchroll]

Well if you understand how CGT works you're the only one!

 

 

 

[M61A1]

Why the welfare bill? Negative gearing, superannuation, corporate tax loopholes - there's a shedload of tax not being paid by the top 10% before you start looking at the bottom 10%. Hell, you could even bring in death duties for those Sydney properties where the parents bought them for $50,000 and the kids will sell them for $2 million.

 

 

FactCheck: is 50% of all income tax in Australia paid by 10% of the working population?

 

Why should they be paying more? I am of the opinion that we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

 

Also, if you find that whole video of Kerry Packer, the big objection is the rules. The big companies make decisions about what they do ( making jobs and paying tax) based on the rules at the time. When the govt keeps changing the rules, business finds things difficult and packs up and goes elsewhere.Have we seen this anywhere? It is perfectly sane and legal to " minimize" your tax within the rule. As Mr Packer said, "it's not like they're doing a good job of spending it wisely".

 

 

[dutchroll]

I'm somewhere in the middle on this.

 

The Government should be targeting the massive amount of taxation revenue on earnings from doing business in Australia which ends up overseas through "creative" arrangements, rather than targeting individual high income earners who live here. That alone will bring substantial tax revenue. I believe they are in the process of doing that (or attempting to - how successful they are remains to be seen).

 

I mean if you legitimately minimise tax but still pay it in Australia on your Australian earnings, I don't have a big problem with it. Unfortunately some of the multi-nationals are not doing that.

 

 

[M61A1]

To me a "fair" tax system doesn't unfairly penalise those who put the effort into making more money so that those who choose not to can have good quality of life. I have read that about 48% of households in this country pay no net tax, so I don't understand the idea that big earners should be paying more. We're not supposed to be a socialist country, and I hope we never are. I like the idea that personal effort, results in personal reward. There is no incentive to work hard to reward someone else.

 

They could do away with most of the FTB crap, it's just middle class welfare, and every dollar they hand out costs us two.

 

The biggest thing the govt should be targeting is waste and duplication.

 

 

[Marty_d]

First point. I think the number of people on welfare because they're too lazy to work is a very small minority.

 

Second point. If you get $20,000 a year then you have to spend it all because you need it all for living expenses, therefore it all goes back into the economy. However if you get $2 million a year then you might put a tenth of it through the local economy, the rest is probably invested, including in the property market of existing residences which does nothing but push up house prices.

 

 

[storchy neil]

example would be Telstra call centres would it not neil

 

 

[M61A1]

First point. I think the number of people on welfare because they're too lazy to work is a very small minority. Second point. If you get $20,000 a year then you have to spend it all because you need it all for living expenses, therefore it all goes back into the economy. However if you get $2 million a year then you might put a tenth of it through the local economy, the rest is probably invested, including in the property market of existing residences which does nothing but push up house prices.

On the first point....I have lived in communities where the bulk of them don't work and most by choice. Admittedly, if you consider them as a percentage of the whole of Australia, they are probably not statistically large. Most of them have a story, of how it's not their fault, no-one will give them a job and so on. When you dig a little deeper, they are just fussy about what they will and won't do, and for how much. The number of times I've heard "I'm not doing that!", or "I make more money on the dole", or " I could get a job, at (name a place), but I don't want to move". It always comes back to being able to get more money for less effort while on welfare, than having to get out of bed and work.

 

On the second...who do you think provides the income for most of the working people, and the properties for them to live in?

 

Those who want to start on the property market in an inner city suburb, or think they can save for a property without giving up the durries, drink and/or spend everything lifestyle need to reassess their priorities.

 

Big business can be high profit, but it's also high risk.

 

The old "tax system explained in beers" story sound amusing, but is very close to the truth. If you penalise those paying for almost everything to the point where it's just not worth the effort, all of a sudden, you will find that you really cant afford the bill.

 

 

[Marty_d]

The old "tax system explained in beers" story misses one point entirely, in that business, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If there's a way to make a profit here, even if there's a heavier tax burden on the profits, then someone will do it.

 

It's like the mining companies running the big scare campaign when the MRRT idea was floated. So even though the stuff is still profitable to pull out of the ground, you're going to bugger off to cheaper countries? Yeah right. If you don't pull it out, someone else will.

 

 

[M61A1]

Not every business relies on digging up natural resources, but even those that do are at the mercy of the market. If a customer can get it somewhere else cheaper, they will. While I'm not a fan of trashing the environment for the hell of it, the hypocritical environmental activists keeping companies in limbo by lodging one objection after another,need to remember where their mobile phones, computers, roads houses, shopping centres and money comes from, and just how substandard their life might feel without these things.

 

The hypocrisy of driving around in a ute with a "no to quarrying" Sticker around here is just astounding..

 

 

[Marty_d]

It's true about being at the mercy of the market, but we aren't talking about market forces when it came to the MRRT. It was supposed to be a tax on "super" profits. The fact that companies are profitable at all means the market is buying their product. If they're massively profitable then all that happens is their shareholders get bigger dividends and the board members vote themselves bigger bonuses. Just because the government takes an extra slice out of that fat, in no way means the company is unprofitable or that market forces will dictate their failure. On years where the profit is not so big then the tax is similarly reduced.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

First point. I think the number of people on welfare because they're too lazy to work is a very small minority. .

Try actually living in major city suburbs or coastal areas and see how fast your opinion on that changes. I got 20 years in Logan City myself, one of Australia's highest suburban social security recipient areas.

 

Or better still, try owning a business and have people come in for job interviews, especially sub 25 year olds.

 

Just note I do have genuine sympathy for those who genuinely want to work, especially in rural areas, it is hard going.

 

However if you get $2 million a year then you might put a tenth of it through the local economy, the rest is probably invested, including in the property market of existing residences which does nothing but push up house prices.

And the 90% invested is then made available for others.

 

Your uber-Socialist stance is ridiculous, people risk money everyday, more lose than some win, but they are the ones who take the risk and deserve to win if they do and yet you want to punish them for what? For being willing to risk more than you would?

 

3 times I have taken every cent I had, including twice selling my home, cars, motorcycles etc, to invest into myself. But if I get a return for my ultimate risks and working my ass off 24/7, as I am right now, I should be punished for it, or worse, forced to share with others who sit on their lazy asses and scream "entitlement" .... yeah, nah, sod off, put the Playstation down and go wash some cars or mow a lawn, it's not beneath you.

 

Marx'ism has been historically proven as a failure time and time again for every Nation that has attempted it - ironically worst for the people nearer the bottom who blindly think it's going to benefit them the most and who in some cases have killed tens of thousands to implement it.

 

Capitalism, with some socialism applied, works, Jealousy doesn't.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Your uber-Socialist stance is ridiculous, people risk money everyday, more lose than some win, but they are the ones who take the risk and deserve to win if they do and yet you want to punish them for what? For being willing to risk more than you would?

 

3 times I have taken every cent I had, including twice selling my home, cars, motorcycles etc, to invest into myself. But if I get a return for my ultimate risks and working my ass off 24/7, as I am right now, I should be punished for it, or worse, forced to share with others who sit on their lazy asses and scream "entitlement" .... yeah, nah, sod off, put the Playstation down and go wash some cars or mow a lawn, it's not beneath you.

 

Marx'ism has been historically proven as a failure time and time again for every Nation that has attempted it - ironically worst for the people nearer the bottom who blindly think it's going to benefit them the most and who in some cases have killed tens of thousands to implement it.

 

Capitalism, with some socialism applied, works, Jealousy doesn't.

Ok Bex, live up to your handle, take a couple and settle down.

 

Uber-socialist my ar*se. If you go back to the beginning of this little tete-a-tete you'll see that we were discussing the moronic downsizing of the CSIRO, and M61 made a point about paying for it by reducing welfare. Wanting to see the budget balanced by multi-nationals ceasing to avoid their taxation responsibilities is not socialist, it's good bloody sense and you know it.

 

Good on you for taking risks and I hope your current venture, in all senses, takes off. No offence though but you're a little way away from becoming a Google or Apple, but when you do, I hope you don't create shell companies in tax havens and move your profits offshore to avoid what you should be paying.

 

I'm glad you feel empathy for the unemployed who want to work, I feel the same. People are different and not everyone can be an entrepreneur with a nose for a good business idea. Many just want to work as an employee and are finding no jobs available. Without going into exactly where I work, I do see a bit of this and I know from experience that the number of unemployed who are seriously looking for work, or have given up in despair because they've been trying their ar*se off for years with no success, well outnumber the ones who are plain lazy or think they're entitled.

 

Now for your final little thrust, the jealousy angle. I don't know whether you're aiming that at me personally, or all left-leaning green supporting socially progressive secular humanists in general, but from my own point of view nothing could be further from the truth. I'm extremely happy with my current work/life balance and have absolutely no desire to claw up the corporate ladder, working stupid hours and not seeing my family from week to week, in order to be able to afford a new BMW every year and an air conditioned McMansion which I wouldn't appreciate because I'm never home. The only envy I feel is when some lucky bugger tootles overhead in his Savannah or CT4, and that's something I am (slowly) working to achieve!

 

 

[spacesailor]

Another slant on the unemployed!.

 

When I came to this great country, I had to live at a caravan park, & I Never got replies or personal interviews when job hunting.

 

The social security told me to Lie on my applications, and not put "caravan park" on any correspondence.

 

OK, I had six interviews and three "please start asp", in one day.

 

Tells about eco environment the employers look to for worker's.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[dutchroll]

The only envy I feel is when some lucky bugger tootles overhead in his Savannah or CT4, and that's something I am (slowly) working to achieve!

Wot've you got against radials??

 

 

 

[M61A1]

Wot've you got against radials??

Probably a bit thin on the ground ( or air) in Tasmangia.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Wot've you got against radials??

Absolutely nothing, Dutch, feel free to bring your gorgeous "girlfriend" down to Tassie and buzz my house any time!

 

 

[M61A1]

Section 18C refers to vilifying conduct in public on the basis of race, religion, etc. Section 18D provides free speech protections, and specifically exempts the conduct if it was during the course of artistic work, or academic debate, or in the public interest, or was a fair and accurate report in good faith, or was a fair comment on a public matter and the person genuinely held this belief. There are so many "get out of gaol free" cards in 18D. Also it states that while it's unlawful, it's not a criminal offence (necessarily).

So I could publicly say "a lot of aborigines in the country spend their welfare money on booze" and the aborigines can be as upset and hurt about it as they like. I have done absolutely nothing wrong under Section 18C.

 

What I can't do is publicly (ie, to a big crowd of people, or a national newspaper audience) say "all Jews are filthy pigs and Hitler should've finished what he started". That would probably be unlawful under 18C if anyone could be bothered complaining, and it would demonstrate that I was an a*sehole of course. Most complaints made under 18C are resolved with negotiation.

 

I personally think there are enough defences and free speech safeguards in 18D to nullify concerns about 18C, though I'd be open to changing the wording a bit.

 

One of my great concerns about the times we live in at the moment, and I've seen it a lot, is that people seem to be increasingly hiding behind the "free speech" thing using it as an excuse to be real b*stards, but at the same time be totally free from any criticism. If you dare criticise them over their views, you get a broadside of "I have a right to say blah blah blah.......!" Yes of course they do, but they can't demand a right to be respected for it!

 

Summary: I'd be open to minor changes to it, but I don't think it needs to be scrapped or have major amendments, and I actually think the protections in 18D are reasonable.

Been watching this case for a while

 

QUT embroiled in computer lab ‘segregation’ furore

 

The poor bastard in the middle of it, according to recent articles , has had to give up a degree in education, as he will be unemployable after this.

 

I wouldn't like to bet my house on getting a reasonable outcome, if I was the person in question. Even if you win, you've already lost.

 

 

[Bruce]

I reckon there is all the difference in the world between people like Bex and people like that dreadful Hancock woman, who was the richest in the world and didn't deserve to be . I agree with Marty about such people, but I reckon startup entrepreneurs who provide employment should be treated like heroes. I would give instant dismissal to any bureaucrat who treated such a person with anything less than respect and helpfulness. And his line manager too, unless the manager has a real convincing story.

 

After we have established the principle with people like Bex, we should move on and apply it to farmers.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Nocookies

 

THE degree of ignorance about the distribution of tax across households is remarkable, especially given that the truth is so easily and freely accessible. For politicians perhaps it is wilful; the facts suit neither side.

 

The Left typically tries to create the impression the “rich” aren’t paying their “fair share”. Consider former treasurer Wayne Swan’s attacks on “mining billionaires” and welfare groups’ continual prattling about the financial benefit of concessional super taxation to high-income earners.

 

The Right, meanwhile, evokes the ordinary, “battling” taxpayer, whose hard-won earnings, so the argument goes, are siphoned off to pay for inefficient or ineffective government programs.

 

But the overwhelming bulk of people in Australia pay no net tax at all. High-income earners have become a giant pinata that the majority hit for extra money to pay for whatever new social spending programs the political class proposes to stay in office.

 

Our constitutional democracy, rather than safeguarding a set of inviolable tax rules applied under the rule of law, has become an elaborate mechanism for extracting resources from a small minority for the much larger majority. A crude summary might be “pay up or else”.

 

Only the top fifth of households ranked by their income - those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year in the financial year ending June 2012 - pay anything into the system net of the value of social security in cash and kind received, according to data from the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of household income.

 

The distribution of personal income tax - the federal government’s biggest source of revenue, raising about 45 per cent of the total ($165 billion this year) - is far more progressive than headline marginal tax rates suggest. Including the 1.5 per cent Medicare levy, Australia’s income tax rates range from 19 per cent for every dollar of income above $18,200 to 46.5 per cent for every dollar above $180,000. Most taxpayers face a 34.5 per cent marginal rate.

 

But average income tax rates on households’ privately generated income (ordinarily wages and salaries, but dividends and rental income too) ranged from 1.5 per cent for the bottom fifth of households in 2012 to 22 per cent for the top fifth.

 

The 1.73 million households in the middle quintile paid an average tax rate of 12.3 per cent on average incomes of $88,900. But the ABS survey estimates these households received $31 a week in Age Pension payments, $13 in disability payments, $48 in child-related payments and $12 in unemployment benefits, along with a host of others that whittle their average net tax payments down to $84 a week.

 

This sort of analysis excludes the value of government benefits beyond cash: “free” schools, hospitals, public transport and the like, which the ABS estimated to be $413 a week for these middle-ranked households. Netting everything off shows even “average”, let alone lower-income, households got back $2.70 for every $1 they paid in tax. Households in the bottom quintile enjoyed benefits worth more than 320 times what they paid in tax compared with about 10 times for those in the second-lowest quintile.

 

Notwithstanding the enormous variation in the circumstances of individuals and households within each of these five buckets - for instance, childless, healthy workers will pay in much more than unemployed families with sick children - the disparities are as remarkable as they are little-known.

 

Factoring in payment of “regressive” taxes such as the GST and tobacco and alcohol excise doesn’t appear to alter the overall picture. Every six or so years the ABS painstakingly distributes the burden of these “taxes on production” across households, based on estimated consumption patterns.

 

In the financial year ending June 2010, what one might call “holistic average tax rates” (including indirect and direct taxes and net of social security in cash and kind) ranged from -64 per cent for the bottom quintile, to -22 per cent for median households and 13 per cent for the top fifth of households.

 

Put simply, only the top fifth of households paid any tax. The bottom 6.9 million households, while often incurring income tax liabilities and regularly paying GST, received more in cash welfare and services than they paid in.

 

The concentration of the tax burden on higher-income earners would be starker still if the many tens of thousands of senior local, state and federal public servants - whose salaries often exceed $200,000 a year - were considered a cost. One could argue that the taxes paid by workers whose jobs depend on taxing other workers are akin to a cash refund to everyone else, rather than an organic contribution.

 

It is absurd to claim the “rich” - assuming incomes rather than wealth are the defining criterion - aren’t paying their “fair share” of tax when they in fact pay all of it. Equally, to argue that the “average” worker is subsidising government folly is difficult given that their aggregate benefits exceed the tax they pay.

 

Without making any judgment about the merits or fairness of the status quo, the burden appears to be shifting further toward higher-income earners. Comparing the 2003-04 and 2009-10 financial years, holistic average tax rates fell on average 8.2 percentage points for the bottom three income quintiles, but only 4.6 per cent for the top two quintiles.

 

It is still difficult to explain why these rates fell because there are so many moving parts to the social security and income tax systems. Of course, lower tax rates do not imply that less tax is collected: the level and growth rates of income across income quintiles varies and a one-percentage-point drop in average tax rates for higher-income earners has far greater consequences for revenue than much bigger changes for others.

 

Separate data from the Australian Taxation Office confirm rising progressivity. Based on income tax returns from the 2010-11 financial year, the top 1 per cent of individual income earners - who in the 2010-11 tax year were those with taxable incomes of more than $281,800 a year - paid $23.55bn or 17.7 per cent of the total income tax haul, up from 17 per cent in 2009-10.

 

Meanwhile, the top 10 per cent of taxpayers - with taxable incomes of more than $105,500 - paid 46 per cent, up from 45.3 per cent a year earlier. The bottom third paid less than 5 per cent in both periods.

 

The highly and increasingly progressive nature of Australia’s tax burden is clear, but why?

 

First, income tax becomes more progressive every year without any deliberate change because of what economists call “fiscal drag”. Because the income tax thresholds are fixed in nominal terms and prices tend to rise, every year more taxpayers are pushed into ever-higher tax brackets and larger portions of their real incomes are taxed at higher rates.

 

Also, most people earn relatively little. While the ABS reports that average annual earnings for individuals were $74,000 a year last May, this figure doesn’t reflect typical circumstances because the “average” is an irrelevant socio-economic metric, increasingly undermined by rare but very large individual incomes. According to the 2011 census, the median household income, which is unaffected by outliers, was only $64,100.

 

Within advanced countries, the distribution of incomes has become more and more skewed since the 1980s, albeit less rapidly here than in the US and Britain. Economists debate vigorously whether this is because globalisation has boosted the financial returns to innovation, talent and skilled work, or whether the corporate (especially the finance) sector has become more skilled at extracting income at the expense of everyone else (”rent seeking”).

 

Regardless, burgeoning incomes at the top have given governments a lucrative and politically attractive revenue source. Both major political parties in Australia have been able to promise extra, vote-winning government spending that increasingly overwhelms growth in taxes paid by the vast bulk of the population.

 

The Labor government’s decision to lift the Medicare levy to 2 per cent from this July to partly pay for the forthcoming disability insurance scheme is a good recent example. For its part, the Coalition wants to impose a temporary “levy” on big companies’ profits (which will reduce dividend income flowing to upper-income earners) to pay for its paid parental leave scheme.

 

The massive disparity between gross and net payments of tax - 12.6 million people lodged income tax returns in 2010-11 - suggests “churn” is rampant and an immensely complex system is rife for rationalisation: we have more than 100 different taxes across three tiers of government interacting with a multitude of social security services in cash and kind.

 

The administrative costs of collecting taxes - especially income tax - are large, not to mention the damage they cause to enterprise and effort.

 

Cutting cash social security along with the first few marginal income tax rates, for instance, would create a more honest tax system and prompt a virtuous cycle of reducing welfare dependency, boosting employment to boot. By converting “in-kind” social security to cash, state governments could provide parents with a voucher to spend on schools administered in the private sector, would help to boost transparency.

 

Only a tiny share of the population were eligible for the very low rates of income tax that emerged in English-speaking countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While the scope and size of governments have soared since then, the price of civilisation still, rightly, falls disproportionately on the richest.

 

The distribution of tax is not the problem but its growth as a share of national income is (along with undue focus on income rather than wealth as the determinant of someone’s capacity to pay).

 

Critics tend to argue that ever-greater taxes drive economic activity overseas and reduce the incentive to work, undermining growth. These are valid arguments but they do not answer the question of what is the most desirable “inequality-economic growth” trade-off.

 

No number of studies showing that rising tax rates stifle growth, however statistically persuasive, will match glib, emotional arguments that the “rich” can “afford” to pay, so we should make them. The moral case for fixed, reasonable taxesmay resonate more than the pure economic one. Arbitrary increases in taxes to pay for services the market can and should provide offend the rule of law and erode individual property rights.

 

 

[dutchroll]

Well, Adam Creighton has always been .......no in the spirit of refraining from personal insults I won't say it.

 

For most people that column falls squarely in the TL:DR category but notwithstanding that, there are elements of truth in his column mixed in with grandiose statements which simply aren't true as well as a good deal of idealistic economic theory and fudging figures. It's what he does best. Conflating things to present his idealistic conservative think-tank view (what he did before becoming a journalist for the Australian, which is money for jam - editorial staff there earn 6 figure salaries for what could best be described as a dubious contribution to society and the country - so I don't blame him).

 

Example: in the 9th paragraph he uses "average" figures to whinge about how much people get back in benefits, then several paragraphs later states that "average is an irrelevant socio-economic metric" and "distorted by outliers" (true, but "median" has statistical disadvantages too). This is classic Creighton. "Lets have a bet each way eh, depending on whether it supports my argument. No one will notice!"

 

Example: Creighton uses some very fuzzy maths to show that an "average" income earner gets back $2.70 for every dollar they pay in tax. How does he arrive at this? He includes literally everything that's funded or partly funded by Government. Public schools. Public hospitals. Public transport. This distorts the income and tax picture at his convenience, because not only do those things exist for specific purposes, but they're useable by everyone for the general benefit of society. Also it's impossible to accurately quantify how the use of those things is distributed across various income earners and tax groups, but he makes it up as he goes anyway.

 

I could go on but this is all classic Creighton. Randomly add everything into a pot and stir, then conclude "See? A croquembouche!"

 

He does have a point that individual high income earners do pay a very large part of the tax burden, but doesn't seem to make any sensible argument as to whether this should or shouldn't be the case and why.

 

And if I were an "average" income earner, I'd be pretty ticked off that he pretty much concludes you're as good as welfare recipients!

 

 

[M61A1]

Adam Creighton is not the only one to make this point, and it doesn't take much to understand that a few high numbers raise an "average" significantly.

 

How does the fact that these " but they're useable by everyone for the general benefit of society", make them any less of a benefit? They all cost taxpayers money. The fact is that we have a lot of "middle class welfare". I don't know what your family status is, but I've had kids in the past, and the amount of money that is thrown at families that earn good incomes is staggering.

 

I don't give a damn whether an average earner would be ticked off at being labelled a "welfare recipient", because, if you are an average earner, and collecting what the govt is happy to give you, you are a welfare recipient. ( I have been one myself).

 

I think that a lot of people don't understand that their $20k PA in taxes doesn't really go very far as govt spending is concerned, and that they are getting a lot more than their $20k back.

 

His point is (I think) that we have groups pushing constantly for the so called "rich" to pay more tax, because they can, and that middle income earners a wearing all the load, when this is blatantly crap.

 

As an aside...different thread, but couldn't be arxed to find it...

 

Anther white guy (deaf also) shot by cops in a traffic stop the other day in the US, riots'/protests anyone?

 

 

[Bruce]

Bex, that is a great posting, thanks. It would make a good financial paper article.

 

Here's something I wonder about that you might be able to explain: the highest income earners I know personally are medical specialists. They can well be on 2 million or more a year.

 

On your analysis, these guys are paying for benefits for the rest of us BUT most of their patients are pensioners and most of their income comes straight from the taxpayer.

 

The other source of government handout money is borrowings... these should worry us because the interest bill is already scary and I think we are paying the interest by borrowing more money.

 

So we are paying for CASA policing of RAAus with borrowed money? When we neither want or need this expenditure? How crazy is that?

 

 

[Marty_d]

All of which ignores the social and humanitarian side of the equation. So someone on $4 million a year is complaining because they pay like 45% tax (unless their diligent accountant manages to substantially reduce that) and someone on $20,000 a year pays 0%.

 

I'm sorry, but the person earning $4 million still has over $42,000 a WEEK after tax to live on, whereas the person on $20,000 has, well, $384.

 

Do they ask what your income is when you go buy your groceries? Does everything cost 110 times as much for the rich guy?