
There have been expensive, Government commissioned reviews done in the past that have amounted to a whole lot of not much by both sides of politics. The last major one was the Ken Henry review, where the only thing the Rudd/Gillard Government acted on was the mineral resources tax, choosing to ignore the rest because of possible voter backlash... it's pretty much rinse and repeat every time, no matter who is in office.I think most people would agree with this. As it is now, it is a mess.
It's way above my pay grade but how would it best be achieved? Tax brackets to be rejigged? GST to increase?
The tax base is in relative terms shrinking overall, and has been relying on bracket creep and GST to prop up the budget.
Cracking down on tax loopholes by Multinational companies should have been a quick and easy fix - I would prefer having a blanket ban on claiming interest from overseas related entity loans to prevent profit shifting (which is not available to many overseas countries like the USA), but the universal 15% tax that was proposed (while as delicate as a M1 Abrams tank) would also do the job. But now even that's under threat, courtesy of Trump's tariff posturing (along with his Nazi-wannabe Oligarch supporters wanting to continue to avoid paying any tax at all as part of their pound of flesh for continued support).
I've said before, someone, sometime, has to make some really unpopular decisions to right the massive leakage of money that's disappearing through the tax system. They will probably have to lie their asses off before an election, and no matter what their buffer, are likely to pay the price and be kicked out the next one (Howard was very, very lucky to survive after bringing in the GST... not so lucky after Workchoices).
Last edited: