Tag Archives: budget

Belt tightening

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It’s something we get told before every Budget. We need to tighten our belts. Costs are up and revenue is down for the Federal Government – we get it every year, and with added hyperbole after each change of government as we get the “they mismanaged the economy” line for their entire first term as an excuse for everything. I’ll get back to why revenue is down in a sec.

So, in preparation for belt tightening 2014 version 1.0, our elected representatives pretty much do what they always and do and come up with a report. Usually they will hire some buddies to write it for them, and that has happened again this time. To make it look more important than ever and make less people actually want to read it, this time it weighs in at 5 kilograms and comes in 5 handy insomnia solving volumes. Now let me just say this. When a 4 page policy is announced 97% of the population will not look at it as it is too long. What chance that Joe & Jane Average will read this weighty tome that makes Tolkien look like a cartoon strip? Since I was being rhetorical I’d best answer that as ZERO. Hell, I am a live away from home person 5 days a week with zero non-online social life at all and even I won’t commit to reading that. Which leaves us with the media to interpret it for us. Obviously the loudest howls will come from those media outlets with affiliation to the opposition parties so I’d suggest reading either The Conversation, Crikey or Get Up for some independent opinion on these things.

From my brief readings so far some of it is acceptable, some of it is dodgy, and the largest component of it is truly bollocks.

Now time for me to go back to why revenue is down. It’s pretty simple and it comes in 2 flavours.

Flavour A which I will call “BumFur Flavour” – tax cuts. We have been given tax cuts by government after government after government. Even when surveys at the local shopping mall said “bugger the tax cut, fix the hospitals and schools” they still gave us tax cuts so they could go to the election and say “the other guys are bad and we gave you a lolly tax cut
‘. Oh yeah, people buy it all the time. “They gave me a $10 tax cut a week“. Yep, then they jacked up the fuel price, train tickets, beer tax, wine tax, your health insurance went up too and somehow you think you are still in front? Moron.

Flavour B which I will call “Bite size chocolate Flavour” – privatisation. We have had highly profitable government run businesses sold off or just dissolved to bring in a single cash injection (in the case of sales) into the coffers. Qantas, Commonwealth Bank, NSW State Lotteries, Telstra, soon to be Medibank Private and the Clean Energy Corporation. Now I hear stupid ideas circulating like privitising HECS debts and the like. Oh yeah, that’s great, that will work brilliantly. I’m sorry, but how stupid are these people? Is it not better to receive an ongoing income than a lump sum once and never again? So here, have a bite size chocolate from the money we raise from selling this profitable government agency and later we will come back and tax the living crap out of you as we have no income anymore. Which probably got spent on directors fees, consultants, travel costs for study tours and the like anyway.

And so next week we come to our Federal Budget where the latest person of limited experience with the real world gets to tell us how we should live our lives. That way we can happily continue to pour massive subsidies into industries run by billionaires and people struggling to get by can have it even harder than they have it now. Because we tighten our belts right? Well, some of us do.

A small instruction for our current Federal Government if I may. Belts go around the waist – not the throat you idiots.

Retire at 70 – pig’s arse!

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Oh my God.

I am so glad I could testify on a pile of whatever religious books you care to name that I did not vote for the parties running the country right now.  These bunch of lunatics, yes it’s time for strong words kiddies, are now telling us that we need to work to age 70 before we can gracefully retire.  Well then, allow me to say the following on behalf of all working Australians that are not in love with their jobs, which I imagine is a hell of a lot of us.

“Get stuffed Joe.”

This is the same government that is committed to “lowering taxes”.  So in return for them lowering taxes, I get to work an extra 3 years?  Hey Joe, put my taxes UP.  Yes, UP.  Here is my layman’s view of what out tax system should look like.

Since I process payrolls for a living I have a bit of an idea on how much people pay in tax.  People on low incomes, and I work for a Group Training Employer so I know all about that since I pay 550 apprentices and trainees each week, get little to no tax deducted, which is as it should be.  I still say the Tax Free Threshold cuts in a bit low but it’s a decent start.  But working in payrolls I have had to complete returns to the Australian Bureau of Statistics for years and years and they come up with great numbers like what the Average Wage is in this country.  So why is it Joe that people earning obscene, and yes that is a fully appropriate term here, amounts of money that they never, at any stage, pay 50% of it in tax?  So let us start a new tax scale right now.

$0 – $42000 per annum = tax rate of 0

$42001 to $60000 per annum = tax rate of 25%

$60001 to $90000 per annum = tax rate of 38%

$90001 to $150000 per annum = tax rate of 45%

$150001 plus per annum = tax rate of 60%

Why that number?  That ladies and gentlemen is DOUBLE the average Australian weekly wage as determined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as of November 2013 and can be found at http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/6302.0~Nov+2013~Main+Features~Key+Figures?OpenDocument

Next we wipe out all of these stupid things that the mega-wealthy can claim in on their tax returns.  Film Australia grants, tax losses on investments and all the other complete bollocks that I have to skip through when I do the tax for myself, my wife and my father.  What should be a five minute job to do our taxes takes almost an hour each by the time you run through all the dribble that people can claim back on their tax.  Hell, I had a meeting with a Salary Packaging specialist who advised me to put my car in my wife’s name, lease it to my employer and claim all of my running costs as a tax deduction.  He also suggested some of my higher paid colleagues should eat out a lot and claim expenses as the tax differential between it being fringe benefits versus PAYG was favourable and could save us thousands,  Not that any of it is legitimate “entertainment” expenses as part of our work – no, it’s a way to “legally” dodge the tax system.  Can it all.  All of it.  Get rid of negative gearing, fringe benefits, all the crap that I end up paying for so that people wealthier than me can get benefits from the tax system.

If all of that garbage was gone, and we had NOT have sold assets that were profitable such as Qantas, the Commonwealth Bank, NSW State Lotteries, etc, then the government would have legitimate income streams.

But no, let’s dig a multi-billion dollar hole in our budget and give the average Australian a $10 dollar a week tax cut.  YOU IDIOTS – WE DON’T WANT PIDDLING LITTLE TAX CUTS – WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO EDUCATE OUR KIDS AT STATE SCHOOLS, WE WANT TO GO TO A DOCTOR AND NOT PAY $65 TO BE TOLD WE HAVE THE FLU AND NEED TO STAY HOME AND HERE IS A MEDICAL CERTIFICATE.  And that is just the tip of the iceberg of what I could write there.

How.  Hard.  Can.  It.  Be.