Showing posts with label National Party of Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Party of Australia. Show all posts
Monday 18 February 2019
Guess that big empty bus and other faux election campaign antics weren’t as effective as Scott Morrison had hoped
Channel
9 News, 16
February 2019:
The Morrison Government
is losing support in Queensland in the latest spell of bad news for the Prime
Minister.
The latest YouGov Galaxy
poll shows that the Prime Minister has lost crucial support in the Sunshine
State, often seen as a key election battleground….
The slump comes despite
Mr Morrison visiting farmers devastated by the recent floods, promising to
rebuild the cattle industry…..
There are only four more
sitting days remain until the budget is handed down, and just seven more until
the most likely date when the election will be called.
Galaxy poll
published 16 February 2019:
Queensland Primary
Vote – L/NP 35 (-2) to ALP 34 (unchanged)
Queensland Two-PartyPreferred (TPP) –
L/NP 48% (-2) to ALP 52% (+2)
Tuesday 5 February 2019
NSW Chief Scientist's interim report re Independent Review of the Impact of the Bottled Water Industry on Groundwater Resources in the Northern Rivers region was due on 1 February 2019
The
NSW Chief
Scientist and Engineer Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte is currently conducting an Independent Review of the Impactof the Bottled Water Industry on Groundwater Resources in the Northern Riversregion of NSW.
As part of the review members of the Office of the NSW Chief
Scientist & Engineer conducted consultation sessions in the area with
stakeholders on Sunday 20 and Monday 21 January 2019.
The NSW Coalition Berejiklian Government was scheduled to
receive an initial report from the Chief Scientist and Engineer on 1 February
2019.
This date, coming as it did during the period when there is a growing awareness of the ongoing ecological crisis cause by mismanagement of the Murray-Darling Basin water resources by federal and states governments, may explain why there has been no mention made by the NSW Government of this interim report in the media.
However, concerned communities and residents in the Northern Rivers region deserve to have this report made publicly available as soon as possible. Not conveniently hidden away until after the 23 March state election.
BACKGROUND
Environmental Defenders
Office NSW, November 2018:
The NSW Chief Scientist
& Engineer will provide advice on sustainable groundwater extraction limits
in the region, as well as advice on whether the current or proposed groundwater
monitoring bores are sufficient.
Local councils have been
advised to suspend approving any new applications for water mining until the
report is complete in mid-2019.
Since 2017, EDO NSW has
been providing advice to clients in the Tweed valley who have concerns about
the way in which water bottling developments are assessed, approved and
enforced.
Water bottling – the
extraction, processing and bottling of groundwater for sale - is controversial,
as it can compete with other water users and have adverse impacts on
groundwater-dependent ecosystems. These operations also generate considerable
plastic waste and the water transport tankers can impact the amenity and safety
of people living in rural areas.
With bottling looking
set to expand in the Tweed valley, our Legal Outreach team conducted a workshop
on water regulation and enforcement in the Tweed Valley to help the community
understand and participate in the regulation of water bottling operations. We
also drafted several letters to the local council on the approval process for
bottling facilities in order to clarify the legal standards in the local
environmental plan and the scientific studies needed to support a development
application for a facility.
With our assistance, our
client produced a detailed report alleging ongoing and systemic breaches of
development consent conditions for four local water bottling facilities and
setting out the range of enforcement options available to Council. We then met
with Council and briefed Councillors on their powers and responsibilities as
the regulator under law. We were able to work constructively with Council to
ensure the full range of investigation and enforcement options were understood
and since then Council has taken decisive steps to ensure water bottling
operations in the Tweed are complying with the law.
The Chief Scientist
& Engineer is expected to provide his initial report by early February
2019, with a final report to be published in mid-2019.
Friday 1 February 2019
Scott Morrison and his cronies want to buy your vote ahead of the May 2019 Australian federal election
Despite there being a growing urgency to invest in the full range
of climate change mitigation measures, in the face of evidence
that it is going to take billions of dollars to step back from the developing
environmental, social and economic disaster developing in the Murray-Darling
Basin, regardless of constant cost cutting in the welfare
sector leading to a fall in services for older Australians and those
with disabilities, while all the while failing to confront a growing
public debt which now stands at est. 679.5 billion, the Morrison
Lib-Nats Coalition Government intends to try and buy votes ahead of
the May 2019 federal election.
Brisbane
Times, 28
January 2019:
The Morrison government
is now more focused on protecting its electoral chances than the nation's
finances with claims it is going on a pre-poll spending spree based on a
short-term boost in tax collections.
Deloitte Access
Economics said in a quarterly report out on Tuesday that Scott Morrison is
looking to buy back disappointed voters, with the government sitting on $9.2
billion worth of tax cuts and handouts that were included in the December
mid-year budget update but not announced.
Deloitte Access partner
Chris Richardson said the government had promised $16 billion in extra spending
and tax cuts in the past six months, the biggest short-term spend by a
government since Kevin Rudd in 2009 in the depths of the global financial
crisis.
He said with the budget
in a reasonable condition on the back of strong global growth and a surge in
company tax profits, the Morrison government had made a decision to woo back
voters with taxpayers' cash.
"Of late, the
government has been busily taking decisions that add to spending and cut taxes,
thereby worsening the bottom line rather than repairing it," he said.
"After all, they've
got the dollars to do it, they're behind in the polls and the election is just
around the corner.
"That powerful
combination of motive and opportunity means that the government's focus has
shifted to shoring up its electoral standing rather than shoring up the
nation's finances."
News.com.au, 24 January 2019;
Pensioners and some
families could receive one-off cash payments from the Morrison government in a
pre-election sweetener.
Senior advisers are
looking at two one-off payments that could be included in the April 2 budget,
the Australian Financial Review reported on Thursday.
If the government
decides to go ahead with the plan, the payments could be distributed before the
federal election, which is due by mid-May.
The first option is a
one off handout to age pensioners and the second is a cash injection for
families.
It’s believed the single
payments would be aimed at luring those who won’t directly benefit from the
Coalition’s $144 billion personal income tax cuts being phased in over the next
six years.
Saturday 19 January 2019
Wednesday 16 January 2019
Another thing for NSW voters to remember as they cast their ballot in the 2019 state and federal elections
The Shenhua Group appear to have first approached the NSW O'Farrell Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government in 2011-2012 concerning its plans to mine for coal on the Liverpool Plains, a significant NSW foodbowl.
This particular state government was the subject of not one but two investigations by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) - Operations Spicer (2014) and Credo (2014).
After he was found to have misled the independent commission Premier O'Farrell resigned as Premier in April 2014 and as Liberal MP for Ku-ring-gai in March 2015. Similarly the then NSW Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for the Central Coast, Special Minister of State and Liberal MP for Terrigal Chris Hartcher resigned as government minister in December 2013 after he was named in ICAC hearings and left the parliament in March 2015.
On 28 January
2015 the NSW Minister for Planning and Liberal MP for Goulburn Pru Goward granted development consent
for a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned Shenhua Group, Shenhua Watermark Coal Pty Ltd, to create and operate an open cut mine on the Liverpool Plains.
On 4 July 2015 then Australian Minister for the Environment and
Liberal MP for Flinders Greg Hunt ticked off on the Abbott Government's environmental approval for Shenhua Watermark Coal to proceed with its mining operation.
Glaringly obvious environmental risks associated with large-scale mining in the region and vocal local community opposition had led to a downsizing of the potential mine site, for which the NSW Berejiklian Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government paid the Shenhua Group $262 million in compensation.
ABC News, 31 July 2015, projected new mine boundaries |
However, in July 2018 the Berejiklian Government renewed Shenhua’s mining exploration licence.
Given that on the successive watches of the O'Farrell, Baird and Berejiklian governments instances of mismanagement and/or corrupt conduct in relation to water sustainability, mining leases and the environment have been reported one would think that an abundance of caution would be exercised.
Instead we now learn
that that Shenhua Watermark Coal has been allowed to vary development consent
conditions for the open cut mine on the edge of the flood plain and, it is looking increasingly like pro coal, former mining industry lawyer, current Australian Minister for
the Environment and Liberal MP for Durack, Melissa
Price, will wave through these variations on behalf of the Morrison
Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government.
Thereby placing even more pressure on the already stressed
surface and underground water resources of the state.
The Liverpool Plains are said to be a significant groundwater source in the New South Wales section of the Murray-Darling Basin.
The Liverpool Plains are said to be a significant groundwater source in the New South Wales section of the Murray-Darling Basin.
Lock The Gate
Alliance, 8
January 2019:
The NSW Government has
allowed mining company Shenhua to alter its development approval for the
controversial Watermark open cut coal mine in the Liverpool Plains, near
Gunnedah, which will enable work on site to begin without key management plans
being approved.
Despite the NSW deal,
Shenhua is still not able to commence work under the Federal environmental
approval until two important management plans, including the crucial Water
Management Plan, have been approved by the Federal Government.
Now local farmers are afraid that the Federal Environment Minister, Melissa Price, may be about to follow the NSW Government lead and vary the approval to allow Shenhua to start pre-construction for their mine without the management plans that were promised.
Liverpool Plains farmer John Hamparsum said, “We’re disgusted that the NSW Government has capitulated to Shenhua yet again, and amended the development consent to let them start pre-construction work without the crucial Water Management Plan in place.
"They have repeatedly stated that the best science would apply to this mine before any work was done, and now they’ve thrown that out the window.
"We’re calling on the Federal Environment Minister, Melissa Price, and New England MP, Barnaby Joyce to now step up and promise that not a sod will be turned on this mine until the full Water Management Plan has been developed and reviewed by independent scientists.
"This mine represents a massive threat to our water resources and our capacity to feed Australia, and if the National Party has any respect for agriculture they need to act now and deliver on their promise that the best science will be applied.
"We won’t accept creeping development of this mine and weakening of the conditions that were put in place to protect our precious groundwater," he said.
Lock the Gate Alliance spokesperson Georgina Woods said, "It’s been four years since the NSW and Federal Governments approved Shenhua’s Watermark coal mine on the Liverpool Plains and there are still no management plans in place.
"Instead of upholding the conditions of Shenhua’s approval, the NSW Government has watered them down so that Shenhua can start work without these crucial plans in place.
"The community has a long memory and will not accept Governments changing the rules to the benefit of foreign-owned mining giants over local farmers," she said.
The former Federal Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, made a strong commitment that a Water Management Plan for the project would not be approved unless the Independent Expert Scientific Committee was satisfied with it.
The amended NSW approval can be accessed here.
Now local farmers are afraid that the Federal Environment Minister, Melissa Price, may be about to follow the NSW Government lead and vary the approval to allow Shenhua to start pre-construction for their mine without the management plans that were promised.
Liverpool Plains farmer John Hamparsum said, “We’re disgusted that the NSW Government has capitulated to Shenhua yet again, and amended the development consent to let them start pre-construction work without the crucial Water Management Plan in place.
"They have repeatedly stated that the best science would apply to this mine before any work was done, and now they’ve thrown that out the window.
"We’re calling on the Federal Environment Minister, Melissa Price, and New England MP, Barnaby Joyce to now step up and promise that not a sod will be turned on this mine until the full Water Management Plan has been developed and reviewed by independent scientists.
"This mine represents a massive threat to our water resources and our capacity to feed Australia, and if the National Party has any respect for agriculture they need to act now and deliver on their promise that the best science will be applied.
"We won’t accept creeping development of this mine and weakening of the conditions that were put in place to protect our precious groundwater," he said.
Lock the Gate Alliance spokesperson Georgina Woods said, "It’s been four years since the NSW and Federal Governments approved Shenhua’s Watermark coal mine on the Liverpool Plains and there are still no management plans in place.
"Instead of upholding the conditions of Shenhua’s approval, the NSW Government has watered them down so that Shenhua can start work without these crucial plans in place.
"The community has a long memory and will not accept Governments changing the rules to the benefit of foreign-owned mining giants over local farmers," she said.
The former Federal Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, made a strong commitment that a Water Management Plan for the project would not be approved unless the Independent Expert Scientific Committee was satisfied with it.
The amended NSW approval can be accessed here.
A legal perspective on the issues surrounding water management by Dr Emma Carmody, Senior Policy and Law Reform Solicitor, EDO NSW and Legal Advisor, Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, is included in the December 2018 issue of Law Society Journal, Managing our scarce water resources: recent developments in the Murray-Darling Basin.
Thursday 10 January 2019
What did National Party federal ministers know about allegations of water theft & fraud and when did they know it?
Before unlawfully
entering federal politics in 2004, Nationals MP for New England Barnaby
Joyce was an accountant in St. George, Queensland just 119 km up the
Barwon Highway from the extensive Norman cotton farming complex.
As a senator
for Queensland he was Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Infrastructure
and Water from 25.3.2010 to 14.9.2010 and Shadow Minister for Regional
Development, Local Government and Water from 14.9.2010 to 18.9.2013.
He became a
Cabinet Minister in the Abbott Coalition Government and Deputy Prime Minister of
Australia in the Turnbull Coalition Government.
From 21.9.2015
to 27.10.2017 and then from 6.12.2017 to
20.12.2017 he was also the federal Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources.
Lawfully
elected to the Australian Parliament for the first time in the 2017 New England
by-election, thereafter he has sat as a National Party backbencher.
Given what we
now know about Joyce’s attitude to control of water resources and his favouring
of the needs of irrigators over those of dryland farmers and the environment the
question must be asked – what did he know about this alleged $20 million fraud
and when did he know it?
The same question
also needs to be asked concerning current Minister for Agriculture and Water
Resources & Nationals MP for Maranoa David
Littleproud’s knowledge of this matter.
ABC
News, 9
January 2018:
Two senior figures in
Queensland cotton conglomerate Norman Farming have been arrested over an
alleged $20 million fraud involving federal funds earmarked for Murray-Darling
water savings.
Norman Farming CEO John
Norman, 43, and his chief financial officer Steve Evans, 53, surrendered
themselves at the Brisbane watch house Tuesday morning with their lawyers at
their sides.
The men appeared in the
Brisbane Magistrates Court Tuesday afternoon and were granted bail.
Police are alleging the
rural fraud operation involved the director of the company submitting
fraudulent claims, including falsified invoices related to six water-efficiency
projects on the southern border property near Goondiwindi, known as Healthy
Headwater projects.
Mr Evans will face
charges in relation to four of those projects.
Police said the
sophisticated fraud spanned seven years.
It has taken the rural
arm of the major and organised crime squad more than a year to conduct what
Detective Inspector Mick Dowie called, "a very protracted, very complex
investigation".
Inspector Dowie said
they had to trawl through thousands of documents and call in forensics
accountants because of the sheer scale of the activities.
"There has
obviously been a significant amount of documentation that's had to be analysed,
and the offences particularly relate to the modification of invoices from
contractors or service providers to the farming community," he said.
"We'll allege the
company contracted harvesters or machinery operators to prepare for farming.
"And [we'll allege]
those invoices were modified to show it was actually for earthworks related to
the improvement of water efficiency, modified to suit the needs of the claim,
and, we will allege, purely fabricated claims for use of machinery to fulfil
the needs of the claims."
Norman Farming, a large
cotton operation near Goondiwindi in Queensland's southern border region, was
raided last October as part of a major criminal investigation, after a long
covert operation.
At that time, the ABC's
Lateline program reported the agricultural conglomerate was on the market for
more than $100 million.
It also reported local
farmers' concerns the Healthy Headwaters scheme had failed because there was
never any checking of invoices by department officials.
According to Lateline,
the Federal Government was made aware of allegations Norman Farming was
diverting floodwaters in late 2016.
But the $154 million
Healthy Headwaters budget was being administered by Queensland's Department of
Natural Resources.
Inspector Dowie said in
the department's defence it did not have any power of compulsion like police.
"So they can't
force people to hand over documentation like we can, so they can compare
original against what is produced," he said…..
BACKGROUND
Excerpt from SA Murray Darling Basin Royal Commission Exhibit |
The
Guardian, 9
April 2018:
Fraud charges are
expected to be laid against one of Queensland’s biggest cotton irrigators, John
Norman, within a matter of weeks.
If the trial of the
owner-operator of Norman Farming, and former cotton
farmer of the year goes ahead, it is likely to draw attention to the
links between the irrigator’s family and that of the federal minister for
agriculture and water resources, David Littleproud.
If the charges are laid,
they will also throw the spotlight on the Queensland government’s failure
in administering a key plank of the $13bn Murray-Darling basin plan, how it
withheld critical information about the alleged crimes, and how it raises
queries as to whether it lied about its own investigation.
For the past 18 months,
an expanding team of undercover detectives, cybercrime experts and forensic
accountants have been investigating Norman’s business on the Queensland/New
South Wales border, an irrigated cotton aggregate stretching 45km north from
the McIntyre river.
The investigation has
focused on whether Norman Farming misused upwards of $25m in
Murray-Darling basin infrastructure funds that were supposed to make the
irrigator more efficient and deliver water back to the ailing river system
downstream.
The plan for the basin
is funded by the commonwealth and administered by state governments. But
allegations that the $150m Healthy Headwaters Water Use Efficiency
projects in Queensland, part of the MDB plan, lacked any genuinely independent
checks on projects, means it may have been left open to corruption.
“It’s been a
loosey-goosey slush fund helping irrigators get richer,” according to Chris
Lamey, a dry-land farmer who’s seeking compensation from Norman, his neighbour.
“It’s achieved the opposite of what was intended. There’s a lot of water not
getting into NSW now and it’s backed up in dams next door to me.”
Queensland’s covert
police investigation into Norman Farming went
public in October 2017, when dozens of major crime squad detectives holding
multiple subpoenas fanned out from Goondiwindi in early-morning high-speed
convoys, heading across the floodplain to the irrigator’s properties and
several of its contractors in and around the border river town.
The first person police
met at Norman’s main Kalanga property, according to a source close to the
investigation, was a teenage office worker who, when asked where the financial
records were kept, explained they had been cleared out only days before by
backpackers hired by her boss through a local publican. She took police to a
locked shipping container where they had been moved.....
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
17 July 2017:
Deputy Prime Minister
Barnaby Joyce has stoked the controversy over claims of water theft in NSW
aired by the ABC, dismissing the report as a ploy to strip more water off rural
communities.
The comments have
prompted the South Australian government to call for his removal from the post
of federal water minister.
Mr Joyce told a
gathering in a pub on Wednesday evening in the northern Victorian town of
Shepparton, that it was important the Nationals had taken control of the Murray
Darling Basin Plan.
"[We've got] $13
billion invested in it," Mr Joyce said, referring to the plan, according
to a recording by the ABC. "We've taken water and put it back into
agriculture [ministry] so we can look after you and make sure we don't have the
greenies running the show, basically sending you out the back door."
Mr Joyce took aim at
the Four Corners investigation broadcast this week that
identified apparent rorting by some irrigators of billions of litres in the
Barwon-Darling region of northern NSW.
The program stirred
national concern and prompted NSW water minister Niall Blair on
Wednesday to appoint a former head of the National Water Commission Ken
Matthews to conduct an independent probe of the claims.
Mr Joyce downplayed the
impact of the alleged water theft at a media conference in Canberra on
Wednesday - likening it cattle rustling - before dismissing the claims further
at the Shepparton gathering......
Monday 7 January 2019
Why has Australian Treasurer & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg morphed into a frenzied Trump?
“Ultimately, a dollar of tax avoided by high income Australians is an extra dollar of tax paid by all other Australians.” [Australian
Labor Party (ALP) policy document Positive
plan to help housing affordability]
The
Australian Labor Party has put forward a number of policies which limit the
degree to which affluent groups in our society can manipulate the tax system.
These tax reform policies will:
* limit negative gearing to investment properties
already negatively geared and newly built residential housing. However net income
losses on existing negatively geared properties will not be able to be used to
offset salary & wage income;
* cease cash
refunds for excess dividend imputation credits on which the investor personally paid
no tax originally and who has no current tax liability to offset with these
credits;
* reduce the discount on capital
gains tax from 50 per cent to 25 per cent after the deduction for any capital losses. Some assets
and events are exempt from capital gains tax. These include selling your
principle home, personal car, personal use assets or selling an asset acquired before capital
gains tax was introduced on 20 September 1985.
According to the Australian Taxation Office if you are an individual rather than a corporation then the Capital Gains Tax Rate is the same as your Income Tax Rate in the applicable year.
According to the Australian Taxation Office if you are an individual rather than a corporation then the Capital Gains Tax Rate is the same as your Income Tax Rate in the applicable year.
These same policies have caused former Deutsche Bank director, current Australian Treasurer and Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg (left) to morph into a frenzied
Trump. Pumping out slogans, misrepresentations and sometimes downright political lies on
every media platform he can access.
The
Australian, 5
December 2018, p.2:
Josh Frydenberg has
launched a pre-election assault on Labor’s plan to halve the capital gains tax
discount, warning that hundreds of thousands of Australians will be taxed at
the “highest rates” in the Western world.
Shifting his focus from
Bill Shorten’s proposal to limit negative gearing to new dwellings and the
“retiree tax”, the Treasurer yesterday cited government analysis that showed
Australians would be taxed up to 36.75 per cent on their capital gains under Labor’s
policy, up from 23.5 per cent now….1
Labor’s 50% increase to capital gains tax will cost jobs, punish those who work hard and save, and give Australia a CGT rate much higher than other advanced economies. pic.twitter.com/W4c3pgcgCt— Josh Frydenberg (@JoshFrydenberg) January 4, 2019
.@JoshFrydenberg on Labor’s negative gearing: Everybody who owns equity in their home will be worse off under Labor’s policy.— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) November 6, 2018
This is a major tax grab by the Labor Party.
MORE: https://t.co/9fyClHfMTo #FirstEdition pic.twitter.com/H0H0WTtFV5
So why is
Frydenberg screaming misrepresentations at the top of his lungs, urged on by the Housing Industry Association?2
Could it be
because 56.2 per cent of the tax benefits from Negative Gearing go to individuals whose incomes are in the top 20
per cent of Australian incomes and only 5.2 per cent of the tax benefits go to individuals
in the lowest 20 per cent of incomes?
Or because est.
75 per cent of tax savings from Capital
GainsTax discounts go to the top 10 per cent of high income families?
Perhaps it’s
because Self-Managed Super Funds are a major beneficiary of cash refunds for excess dividend imputation
credits, with 50 per cent of the benefit to SMSFs accruing to the top 10 per
cent of SMSF balances and some funds receiving cash refunds of more than $2.5
million a year?
Likely he’s
screaming because all three instances represent how successfully the affluent have gamed
the tax system to date and he like most right-wing politicians see such tax
manipulation as a right belonging to them and their mates and, therefore have no
interest in supporting a fairer distribution of the tax burden.
He also
appears to be ignoring the fact that Treasury modelling of these Labor policies shows an increase in federal government revenue by $2 billion over time and, that these same policies have the potential to put downward pressure on property prices in the
short-term so that genuine first home buyers might get a foot in the door with
more affordable residential housing.
Bottom line
is that Labor’s tax reform policies are primarily targeted at investors with a marginal tax rate (including Medicare Levy) of over 45 per
cent - which roughly equates with the top 20 per cent of Australian residents
with private wealth.
That is, the 'professional' investors/tax avoiders amongst the 1.16 million Australians who according to Credit Suisse in 2017 are millionaires, some many, many times over.
Footnotes
1. KPMG, Demark- Taxation of investment income and capital gains: “Interest and rental income are taxable as investment (or capital) income with a marginal tax of 42 percent (2018).” Denmark's Capital Gains Tax Rate is higher than the worse case scenario of up to 36.75 per cent under Labor which Frydenberg postulates in Para 5 of this post. Therefore Labor would not be imposing "the highest" rates in the Western world'.
1. KPMG, Demark- Taxation of investment income and capital gains: “Interest and rental income are taxable as investment (or capital) income with a marginal tax of 42 percent (2018).” Denmark's Capital Gains Tax Rate is higher than the worse case scenario of up to 36.75 per cent under Labor which Frydenberg postulates in Para 5 of this post. Therefore Labor would not be imposing "the highest" rates in the Western world'.
Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen, A
FAIRER TAX SYSTEM: DIVIDEND IMPUTATION REFORM, 13
March 2018.
Australian
Taxation Office, Individual
Income Tax Rates 2018-2019 and CGT
assets and exemptions
National Australia Bank, Calculating and Paying Capital Gains Tax,
Domain.com.au, The ‘little known’ tax strategy some millennials use to amass large property portfolios, 23 May 2016.
National Australia Bank, Calculating and Paying Capital Gains Tax,
Domain.com.au, The ‘little known’ tax strategy some millennials use to amass large property portfolios, 23 May 2016.
* Photograph of Josh Frydenberg from msn.com
Friday 4 January 2019
Something to remember every time a Liberal or Nationals politician opens his/her mouth in 2019
With both a NSW state election and a federal general election in the first half of this year the Murdoch press and Coalition spokespersons will at some point turn their thoughts to the allegedly oppressive burden of welfare payments on Australian taxpayers and the prevalence of so-called 'welfare bludgers' that are supposedly ripping off the taxpayer.
Leaving aside the fact that every single person in Australia pays one or more forms of tax, even welfare recipients, what is the truth about who gets what from government tax concessions or cash transfers?
In 2018 Australia’s
richest
20 per cent of the population owned est. 68 per cent of national
private wealth, which means that they owned 80 times more in assets and savings
than the poorest 20 per cent of the population.
They also
received higher tax and transfer amounts from federal government coffers
than welfare recipients.
Here is how that comes about......
Here is how that comes about......
Per Capita, The Cost of Privilege Report #7, Executive
Summary excerpts, 29 March 2018:
The modelling assessed
the various tax concessions and other benefits available to high-income earners
and contrasts them with well-understood direct income support measures for
low-income earners and those reliant on our social security safety net.
This report quantifies the annual cost to the
federal budget of various measures that allow Australians in our wealthiest
quintile to minimise their taxable income, thereby reducing government revenue
that pays for services for all citizens.
These measures include
superannuation tax concessions, negative gearing, capital gains tax
concessions, the use of discretionary trusts, the exemption from the Goods and
Services Tax (GST) of private health insurance and education, and the exemption
from Capital Gains Tax (CGT) of the principal place of residence. All of these
concessions disproportionately benefit high income and high wealth households.
Our analysis shows that, in combination, these measures impose a cost on the
federal budget that easily outstrips that of any single welfare recipient
group.
According to our calculations, the cost of foregone tax
revenue from the richest 20% of Australians is over AU$68 billion per annum.
That’s around $37 a week from every worker in the country.1
In contrast, the cost of
income support in the 2016-2017 financial year was, by group:
Age Pension $44.468
billion ($35 a week per worker)
Assistance to families
with children $36.404 billion ($20 a week per worker)
Assistance to people
with disabilities $31.721 billion ($17 a week per worker)
Newstart (unemployment benefits) $10.994
billion ($6 a week per worker)
1
Calculated using the methodology outlined in Answer to Question On Notice No:
257, Taxation paid and 2016-17 Financial Year, what was the total government
spend? Senate Economics Legislation Committee, Treasury Portfolio, Budget
Policy Division, Supplementary Budget Estimates 2017 – 2018
Here is a
practical example of the value of tax concessions to the third family above who fall within the top 20
per cent of the population:
Household Three –
Michael and Gillian
Michael and Gillian have
two children, Isabella, aged 12 and Max, aged 8.
They paid off their
mortgage two years ago and live in a four bedroom house in a bayside suburb of
Melbourne.
Isabella and Max go to the local Catholic primary school and will go on to Catholic secondary college. The family has intermediate hospital and extras private health insurance.
Isabella and Max go to the local Catholic primary school and will go on to Catholic secondary college. The family has intermediate hospital and extras private health insurance.
Michael is a Team Leader
at a large telecommunications company, and earns $230,000 per year. Gillian
works 20 hours a week, during school hours, in the HR department of a major
bank, and earns $60,000 per year.
Both Michael and Gillian
salary sacrifice into their superannuation accounts up to the $25,000
concessional cap. While Michael can only contribute an extra $3,150 of his
pre-tax income to super on top of the $21,850 in compulsory contributions
already made by his employer, Gillian can contribute $19,000, reducing her
taxable income to $41,000.
They own a three bedroom
house in Rye, which they rent out through AirBnB as a holiday home and
negatively gear, allowing them to reduce Michael’s tax by a further $9,400.
The value of the capital
gains tax concession on their holiday home gives them $4,500 in concessional
benefits annually, and the tax exemption of their family home in Melbourne
provides another concession of $23,500 per year.
Michael and Gillian also
receive GST tax exemptions on their private health and education costs to the
value of $3,250.00 per year.
Their combined family
income after tax is $215,446 per annum, or $4,143.19 per week.
The total amount received from the taxpayer in tax concessions
for this family is $71,705 per year, or $1,378.94 per week.
This imbalance in the value of government assistance received by different groups in society, which is so strongly biased towards giving most to the affluent, is a perfect example of Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison's social and economic policies structured to give to those who already have.
Giving to those he appears to believe are 'good' or 'worthy' because they have high levels of income and assets, as opposed to those who are 'bad' or 'unworthy' because they have little in the way of income and assets.
Something readers might care to think on as they decide who to vote for this year.
This imbalance in the value of government assistance received by different groups in society, which is so strongly biased towards giving most to the affluent, is a perfect example of Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison's social and economic policies structured to give to those who already have.
Giving to those he appears to believe are 'good' or 'worthy' because they have high levels of income and assets, as opposed to those who are 'bad' or 'unworthy' because they have little in the way of income and assets.
When I was young this
attitude was simply described as the Protestant Ethic, now it appears to be
known as the Prosperity Gospel.
Under either name it is not the mark of an egalitarian society or of a nation which prides itself on giving everyone "a fair go".
Something readers might care to think on as they decide who to vote for this year.
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