Perspective and poor education
Yet again. The Treasury’s road map for tax increases was released yesterday in the tax expenditures statement.
And as usual, the quality of coverage and analysis in the major newspapers is, how can I put it, GARBAGE.
Take this nugget, or perhaps turd, from Jack Quail in the The Australian:
The 48 tax concessions reviewed by Treasury in its Tax Expenditures and Insights Statement are estimated to cost the federal budget $219.8bn in forgone revenue for the current financial year.
Yeah, no.
These “tax expenditures” are calculated by comparing the difference between a bench mark (highest) rate of tax and the actual tax rate charged. In some cases, the actual tax rate is nil, for example capital gains on the own home.
The ultimate logic behind this arithmetic nonsense is that the government owns everything and anything that poor taxpayers are allow to keep is a concession.
So when the Quail-dill says that “forgone revenue for the current financial year”, another way to put it is that those paying the higher rate of tax are being overtaxed.
If anyone out there is known to Peter Dutton, my recommendation would be to eliminate this piece of epistemic nonsense from the Treasury production link.
End the tax expenditures statement. All it is is a roadmap for tax increases.
Produce instead an expenditures statement showing costs above reasonable benchmark. That would be a roadmap for cutting waste, fraud, and inefficiency from our slothful government.
