This is bullshit. Wealth isn't a fixed concept, it is created and can be destroyed. Rich people, despite whatever "feelings" they have about paying tax simply do pay the most tax at the highest marginal rate, while those on low incomes or government pensions pay ntohing. We need people to use their intellect and inherent abilities to create value for society in the form of new products and services that we consumers leverage to improve our lives. Such people are entitled to a greater share of the pie simply because they create more value to society , not only in the products and services they create but also in the form of jobs. The way is society and economy is structured
is that those who create the most value for society reap the most reward. This is fair. Someone who takes risks, invests their money and runs a business which creates jobs is entitled to a higher standard of living than a disability pensioner who gives little back. There is no such thing as a stupid ass "support pie", its a wealth pie and its created by people who work jobs, start businesses and use their human capital to the betterment of humanity, not by the slothful, disabled, obtuse and unlucky.

Whether or not you morally think rich people should pay more tax, the reality is if you take too much, these productive force of society will stop being productive or take their business elsewhere, which will cause the economy to shrink, job growth to slow down and less "support pie" to go around. Envy is not the way to run the economy.

Edited by rusty: 11/5/2016 10:53:18 AM

Our effective rate may be high for foreign investors but it's not for domestic investors as they receive franking credits that offset income taxes.

Social Security Tax is payed by both employers and the Employees.

I know how it works from Greece and Cyprus. It is basically in lieu of the Superannuation Scheme. Based on the amount of Social Security Tax that is paid, the bigger the pension you get upon retirement. It is not really a tax, but a retirement scheme.

We have Superannuation instead. Again paid by the employer and employee (depending on how you see it).

Australia can't have a Social Security Scheme, otherwise you imply all workers are entitled to a Pension, which is the case in Europe but not Australia.

But I am more than happy for Social Security Tax be debated. But if you pay it, then you get a pension which is non asset tested. The more you pay, the bigger your pension.

Edited by Aikhme: 11/5/2016 11:03:21 AM

ok so in summary

income tax is low compared to other countries
total tax is low compared to other countires
corporate tax is high compared to other countries but used to be low. The change seems to be mostly due to other countries cutting theirs

on whether other countries cutting their corporate taxes has helped its hard to tell. I make a chart hear of corporate tax rates verse gdp growth and I find no trend. How do I share this? Do I just put it in google docs and share the link? Tell me if this works

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rj3VVMovU41uAzFvE90W4Q8GgDEEbGc0XrDH1jP3W3o/edit#gid=0

Our taxes are not low.

We are pretty damn high, but you are comparing to GDP. If GDP goes up by 5%, will your wages go up by 5%. No!

You also got to add all the State Level taxes. Land Tax, Emergency Services Levy, Council Rates, Water Rates and everything else as well including Stamp Duty, Import Duties and levies.

There's a balance mate. If you think wealthy people don't enjoy a higher standard of living in this country then you're deluded.

There is a "support pie", and it supports the "wealth pie". If we don't have a stable country with low crime and as many people as possible contributing to the economy that "wealth pie" shrinks. Do you ever stop to consider why we give pensions to people with disabilities and others that can't work? Because if we didn't, more people would stay have to stay home more to care for them which means they're not contributing to production and shrinking the economy. Pay a little to these "give nothing back losers" and get a lot back from their families.

I'm not a low income earner and that tax cut they're proposing for those earning over $80k will do fuck all for me. The $4 billion+ it will cost would do a lot more for all of us if it was invested into programs or infrastructure that transform our industries and increase our productive capacity as a whole.

yes those taxes are included in the indirect taxes. Your own link shows that taxes as a percent of gdp and income taxes as a percent of gdp are both low compared to oecd average. It also makes no difference if you take taxes as a percent of gni (gross national income) so taxes as a percent of gni are low as well. If you don't like gni, our ppp average monthly wage is 15th in the world - exactly the same rank as our ppp gdp per capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage
It is true that corporate taxes are high but there appears to be no trend between corporate taxes and growth

p.s. my axis were wrong way round in the last graph ](*,) here is an updated graph
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rj3VVMovU41uAzFvE90W4Q8GgDEEbGc0XrDH1jP3W3o/edit#gid=0
actually there is a very weak statistically insignificant trend for decreases in corporate taxes to reduce growth

Edited by grazorblade: 11/5/2016 11:20:54 AM

The point you are missing is that superannuation is paid by workers. When it was introduced, workers gave up payrises to introduce super.

Unlike the healthcare and pension charges levied on employers overseas, superannuation money does not go into government revenue. It goes to the worker. It is part of their wages. It is only "funded by employers" in the same way that all wages are paid by employers.



You are wrong.

We do have a government social security scheme. It is paid out of govt general revenue. The difference between our scheme and overseas is that it is set at the same rate for everyone, not based on what you earned. Super is in addition to this.

My point, which you seem to keep missing, is that the headline corporate tax rate is not directly comparable when you have highly differing tax structures between countries. You are being too simplistic in your analysis.

Right wingers seek to be evidenced based?
When did this start happening?

You seem to be unwilling to accept the sociological, psychological & neurobiological evidence base in regards to political ideology. Possibly because you come from a paradigm that we are all from the same lump of clay, just we need to be better informed. There is a small amount of research to suggest that greater education actually correlates with higher ideological bias - education doesn't moderate ideology.

The reason I don't bother trying to educate those on the right is because I choose not to 'throw my pearls to pigs'.

My link also shows that Income Taxes account for 57% of the total mix. That is high.

Also Corporate taxes are second highest in the OECD.

Sorry Azza, I get some of what you are saying but can not understand what you are saying about Corporate Tax Rates.

Corporations in Australia must pay 30% of their declared profits in tax. That is my understanding.

Generally speaking, apart from 1 other country, Australian corporations are paying the highest rate in Corporate tax within the OECD.

I think you are referring to the chart that separated different types of income tax. If you add those types of income tax together the mix is about the same as the oecd average.
Your link also showed in chart 6 that all types of income tax including social security and payroll are low. The fact that the denominator is gdp rather than gni or average wage has been demonstrated to not matter
Finally it needs to be demonstrated that high corporate taxes are a bad thing. It appears that charting growth verse corporate taxes as a percent of gdp shows no trend and do not support that conclusion

I attempted a quick answer to this question here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rj3VVMovU41uAzFvE90W4Q8GgDEEbGc0XrDH1jP3W3o/edit#gid=0

let me know if you can't open the spreadsheet. I'm not used to sharing google docs so I may have screwed up

I've explained it as simply as I can. If you can't understand my point, not much more I can do.

Another free kick for the Fear Mongering Party....

My problem with your approach is that I think you are far too quick to put everyone in a left/right binary.

There is some truth to your general point, but I think you are far too quick to lump everyone who disagrees with you in that category.

I think you display the same intolerant mindset at times as many of the people you criticise, but from a left wing perspective. You just dress it up in the language of being evidence based.

I am interested in engaging with people who have opposing viewpoints for 2 reasons:

1- It forces me to consider someone else's perspective, which is healthy.
2- It forces me to think through my arguments, and constantly reassess what my opinions are, why I have them, and what other possibilities are there.

I find you far too dismissive, and dare I say smug, too often. You do raise many valid points too, I don't deny that. But I feel you are absolutely set in your views, and have no space for re-consideration or flexibility.

This statement:



I find to be absolutely cringeworthy, and massively hypocritical. Especially so given that you are posting on an online forum. Why are you posting if you "choose not to 'throw my pearls to pigs'"???

Greens dont do polling but leaked emails prove otherwise

Gotcha!->

I'm not talking about the total ammount of tax collected.

I am talking about workers contributing 57% of the total mix. That is pretty unfair imo. It should probably be around 35 to 40%.

I am also talking about the Corporate Rate. We can't have 30% Corporate Tax if the average in Asia is something like 21%

I am not saying Corporations have their tax cut down to 21% overnight. But the LNPs tax cut is a good start.

Which brings us to a more broad and higher GST.

At the end of the day, we are going to have to have this debate under a Coalition Government. We need to have this debate.

I'm not talking about total tax either
income tax as a percent of gdp is low
income tax as a percent of gni is low
income tax as a percent of average wage is low
When you add all types of income tax (including social security and payroll), income tax as a percent of tax revenue is average

also you need to provide evidence that higher corporate tax is a bad thing. I have given evidence to the contrary

I don't mind a debate but a debate means listening to what people are saying

So what are you saying?

Just put up taxes to pay for big spending? Is that it?

our social expenditure as a percent of gdp is low but it is more means tested.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/11/27/2053392/welfare-spending-across-the-oecd/
I would advocate more spending on health and education as well as aged care and rural poverty which are areas I would like to see improvement. Also I would like to see more paid maternity leave and r&d. Raising taxes to maintain the status quo would be ok for me too since we have the 2nd highest human development index in the world, so the current mix is far from terrible in my opinion. Politicians have an agenda to say that everything is terrible and the status quo is awful but the evidence seems to support that the status quo in Australia is pretty good*. The easiest way to do this would be to tax investment income, corporate income and capital gains the same way as ordinary income (you could then use some of the extra cash you get from that to lower income). GST is efficient but regressive so I prefer other avenues.

*This may be the real reason why Australia is called "hard to govern" by the media

Edited by grazorblade: 11/5/2016 12:34:33 PM

Well as a tax payer, I believe the Status Quo can be improved, and made fairer.

I also believe spending needs to be rained in.

Looks pretty reasonable to me.

Your google doc isn't shared correctly, I'd love to have a look at it if you can sort it out. Saying that it's a great test for how little the intended target for your data cares about actually listening to your argument :roll:

I wonder how long it'll be till these public preference deals (or lack thereof) are changed.

It is interesting though as it has really established the Greens as third power of sorts, even if still very much a marginal holder of seats compared to the big two.

Seeing both Labour and the LNP come out and say they don't want the Greens help to win Government is very interesting.

-PB

You are not helping yourself at all.

Here is another graphical representation...



That seems to support the notion that Australia's tax system is well above the world average.

Having been presented with rather compelling arguments as to why your position MAY be wrong, this was all you replied with:

That suggests to me

Anyways, carry on guys. I do enjoy reading this thread every few days and for the most part is quite informative and thought provoking.

I'm going to sound like Decentric here :lol: but Azza and Grazorblade have shared some great data over the last few days. It's very much appreciated. =d>

Geez even Malcolm managed to get the IPA mad at him :lol:

-PB

I have provided a fair bit of data. From the Treasury Department no less, and again with the above graph.

It seems pretty clear to me that Australia is a high tax environment. What the others are saying is that the total amount of tax raised is lower when compared to GDP. I am not arguing that.

I am more looking at the tax rates across the board and that Income Tax is responsible for 57% of the total tax mix.

Everything I have been saying is substantiated.

But if you are comparing to Scandinavian countries, then things appear different.

Edited by Aikhme: 11/5/2016 02:43:44 PM