Pay as little tax as possible - would you?

[surfarthur 22]

Favouring the poor is fine, I can live with that. Here in Australia, it is the middle class welfare that is a problem. As an example, the carbon tax. I have no issue with the introduction of a carbon tax, and I do not think that it has a very large impact on business, in fact, the business I work in may even improve under a carbon tax. What I have an issue with is taking this tax revenue and instead of using it to support research for clean energy technology, just handing it out to middle class families who can easily afford the slight increase in their weekly expenses anyway. If the porpose of the tax is to encourage people to decrease their carbon emissions, then giving them rebates which will in many cases cover the entire impact of the tax does nothing to encourage people to reduce their carbon emissions.

 

There are plenty more examples of middle class welfare in Australia too, the baby bonus is a great example. "ooh look, I had unprotected sex. can I have my $1000 now?"

 

If you can't afford to have kids on the income you earn, then why should other people's tax go towards your child? Or worse still, be your alcohol/TAB/big screen TV money.

[Slippery Jim 65]

Agree entirely, Surfarthur, that middle-class ``entitlements'' are far more of a problem than programs for the poor (contrary to the rumors, I do in fact have a heart -- small, misshapen & feeble, to be sure)

[big-will 7]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAcjntGQuCU

[Go Native 70]

Just as an initial aside…who said anything about maintaining revenue?

A bit less in the pork barrel might not be bad.

And why limit the effect on the poor? Give them an incentive to escape poverty!

 

I wonder what support other than opinion you have for yourassertions.

Under what economic theory do you find a flat tax with no exemptions less ``fair,'' or more beneficial to the rich?

(As if it's somehow more ``fair'' to design taxation to favor the poor…)

 

If you compare it to marginal tax rates it is much less fair on the poor to move to a flat rate of tax as generally they pay very little tax currently. A flat tax rate would greatly increase the amount of tax they would have to pay unless you have something like a substantial tax free threshold. These are people who have the least disposable income in society so recieiving any less due to changes in taxation would be devastating.

It comes down to how much money does any of us require to meet our basic needs. In most capitalist societies those on the minimum wage only barely make ends meet. In many cases they can't really even do that without sizeable government intervention. If you were to take more money from these people you would either have to increase government assistance or increase spending on your police force as crime would go through the roof. It's all well and good talking about making it hard on the poor to give them incentive to move up in the world but it really doesn't work like that. We see in the US, which is still the richest nation on the planet how they have an entrenched underclass of poor including those who work. Capitalism of course requires this. The rich can't get as rich as they do unless there is a whole lot of vey low paid workers. The whole system was easier in the old days of course when colonial powers could just invade other countries and source slave labour. Point is no matter how much incentive you try and give our current economic system requires a portion of society to be relatively poor. You'll never get rid of this class regardless of the incentives you provide as the market can't have everyone in society earning good money.

Anyway in most developed nations we have marginal tax rates because it is considered fairer for society as a whole. You can only consider this an unfair taxation system if you believe that making money is the sole purpose we live for and is what makes for a good society.

There does seem to be a whole lot of debate around what the role of government should be these days. Whether government should be a whole lot smaller and thus reduce our taxes. Many seem to feel this would be a better system. Thing is I reckon that's somewhat naive. A government could privatise many of it's services but in the end we will still have to pay for them one way or the other. If not through tax it would be as upfront costs to a private enterprise whose sole purpose is to make a profit. Which is not always a better way to go. Look how incredibly fair and equitable the US health care system is for example!

It's an interesting debate but I think we need to be very careful about what we decide is best kept in public rather than private hands. Some services like health and education are surely basic human rights within a wealthy nation and should be available to all regardless of your individual wealth? I'm more than happy to pay taxes to ensure things like this.

[Go Native 70]

If the porpose of the tax is to encourage people to decrease their carbon emissions, then giving them rebates which will in many cases cover the entire impact of the tax does nothing to encourage people to reduce their carbon emissions.

 

Household contributions to emissions are somewhat minimal compared to big industry. The carbon tax is aimed at big CO2 emitters not individual households. The rebates are to compensate households for expected increased prices that will be handed down by these industries. In the long run it's about incentivising big business to reduce emissions and ultimately make alternative energy sources more attractive as traditional CO2 producing industries become more expensive. Australian's are the worst contributors to CO2 emissions on a per capita basis in the world. And this is mostly because most of our energy is sourced from coal. The carbon tax should help alternative energy sources like solar be more competitive. Of course we could just reduce the huge amount of subsidies provided to the old fossil fuel industries. That would help too...

[Slippery Jim 65]

OK, so the world's not fair -- no argument, next case please.

 

A flat-tax scenario requires some minimum income level before it kicks in to protect low-wage folks?

Well, every sensible flat-tax proposal incorporates that. The only argument is where you set the level.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be arguing that poverty is somehow caused or exacerbated by capitalism.

When you can show me an alternative economic system that eliminates poverty, come back and we'll talk.

 

Role of government: I agree this needs careful consideration, but in the U.S. and I suspect in most developed economies the pendulum has swung well into the bread & circuses level.

 

Health care in the U.S. is far better than portrayed. Few if any are denied basic health care.

My experience there is limited, but certainly eliminating frivolous malpractice suits would reduce costs, and there seems to be needless red tape (four separate bills for one brief ER visit ).

 

Entrenched Underclass? Hardly! The poorest in today's U.S. live at a standard far higher than the middle classes of many nations. They also have opportunities for upward economic mobility that few other societies offer.

Which brings it full circle to: It ain't a perfect world!

 

No, and it never will be.

[grungy-gonads 54]

Mr Carr has been taking it well.

[hellyer 216]

Speaking of Australia's carbon Tax

 

I don’t think I’ve seen a better perspective on the Carbon Tax.

How appropriate!!!

 

[Slippery Jim 65]

:thumbsup:

[hellyer 216]

It looks like a Bob Brown special to me.

I reckon he would have a pretty big ass-h cakehole

[HelperElfMissy 42]

I thought "avoidance," minimizing tax through legal means, was entirely legal and proper.

As opposed to "evasion," minimizing tax through illegal means.

 

If you don't like the results, change the laws to make certain schemes illegal.

But don't fudge the meaning of the word "avoidance" to make it sound like something improper.

Absolutely!

 

Our business payment priorities begin with paying our staff (first priority); creditors (other than the bank) - no one likes a business trading partner who strings out his payments; then the ATO; then the bank, then we can start thinking about reinvestment into the business, and profit taking. We pay tax every week, and are always in CREDIT with the ATO, never behind.

 

However, we have at times been advised by our finance gurus (you can't be an expert at everything, so we leave that stuff to the experts we hire for the purpose) to invest in some tax minimization measures. They appealed to us: pay $xxxxxxx to the tax office or pay into agroforestry which reduces atmospheric carbon and supports local industry. At the end you may get a high return on your investment, you may get your money back, or you may end up with less than invested depending on the growth of the product, price at the time etc. however it goes that cash was going to the government anyway, if we make a killing then the govt will get half of it in tax, we will get the other half ... The offer was on the table because the govt wanted investment in agroforestry. Win for everyone. No ROI yet.

 

That is not a bad thing.

It is not falsely declaring income to avoid paying tax on it.

It is taking advantage of options available due to government wanting to encourage investment and providing exemptions or tax breaks for investors. It is smart business.

[Go Native 70]

The so called carbon tax is not something you or I have to pay snowjunky. It's a tax on the highest emitters of CO2 in the country. There will be flow on costs to the consumer of course unless those big corporations decide to absorb the cost of the tax for the greater good ( yeah ok back to reality). So that's why the gov is giving something back to us the consumers to offset these increased costs. The purpose of the tax is to make the biggest contributors to our CO2 emissions either reduce or offset these emissions. It will also assist in giving a competitive advantage to alternative energy technologies. Australian's have the highest CO2 emissions on a per capita basis of any country on the planet. It's because most of our energy is derived from burning coal and often brown coal. The coal industry has been propped up with 10's of billions of our tax dollars in subsidies over the years. It's old, polluting technology and it's about time we have a policy that will hopefully see it's demise.

Regardless of whether the mad monk gets in at the next election or not some sort of emissions scheme is inevitable. So far the Libs plan has been shown to be far more costly to us all than the carbon tax. Of course as our media is 70% owned by Murdoch who has campaigned relentlessly on the side of conservative politics it's little wonder so few Aussies appear to be overly supportive of it. Still I reckon it's going to be a little like Howard's GST. Everyone thought the world would end when that was introduced as well. It didn't and it won't.

[hellyer 216]

It's a cartoon mate - lighten up