Why are greedy tax cheats accorded protected species status?

Adele Horin in The Sydney Morning Herald (December 15), has rightfully pointed out the slanted position taken by authorities when addressing the issue of moneys missing from the public purse.

Horin takes a look at how welfare cheats and tax cheats are treated in Australia.

Welfare cheats are soft targets so they get a hammering but tax cheats, who are a protected species, get easy runs home.

In part, Horin wrote:

If tax cheats were hounded as assiduously as welfare cheats, Australia would be better off. But under the old regime, welfare cheats - so-called - were pursued to the ends of the Earth while tax cheats slid under the radar.

Millions of dollars were poured into detecting welfare fraud while in the last years of the Howard government one-third as much was spent tracking down tax cheats, according to budget papers.

The inequity led Professor John Braithwaite, of the Australian National University, an expert on corporate crime, to remark last year that the DPP had taken "soft, easy cases and they are the frauds of poor people. The frauds of sophisticated rich people who are aggressively defended by the best lawyers money can buy deliver lower success rates [to the DPP]."

The government stood to recoup far more from tax cheats than from welfare cheats. On economic grounds alone, it should have ramped up the fight against tax avoiders. According to budget papers, for every dollar spent chasing tax avoiders, the government would recoup $7.53 compared with only $1.94 from the welfare fraudsters. In the end, fewer than 3500 people are convicted of welfare fraud in a year from a population of 6.5 million social security recipients.

Read the entire article "Tax dodgers laughing as the poor are hounded" at:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/tax-dodgers-laughing-as-the-poor-are-hounded/2007/12/14/1197568262862.html


Unfortunately, Horin didn't include superannuation cheats in her article. Although they didn't get a mention, superannuation cheats are out there in big numbers.

So, you ask, "Who are the superannuation cheats?"

Answer: These cheats are thieving employers who do not make the mandatory super contributions for their employees.

"Who's responsible for ensuring employers do the right thing and meet their responsibilities and pay their employees' super?"

Answer: The Australian Taxation Office.

"If the ATO doesn't address the issue of tax cheats properly how can it be expected to address the problem of super cheats?"

Answer: To use the words of Horin, "more hounding, and more tabloid headlines, would not go astray."

PS:
Memo to all employees - contact your super fund and check to see that your employer has paid your super in full. Unfortunately, many employees are being dudded every pay period. Their pay slips show how much super should be going to their fund BUT their employers are pocketing it for themselves.

Aussie professor plays at social engineering

The following has to be one of the most bird-witted ideas ever to come out of the ranks of the Australian medical profession.

 

"FAMILIES would pay a $5000-plus baby levy at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child under a plan flagged in Australia's top medical journal.

Every couple with more than two children would be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.

Perth Assoc Prof Barry Walters outlines his proposal in yesterday's Medical Journal of Australia.

He calls for condoms and greenhouse-friendly services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits for the user and prescriber."

Herald Sun full article today:
 http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22896354-662,00.html

 

How wonderful. The good doctor proposes both a tax on the reproductive capacity of ordinary Australians and a way to earn carbon credits for himself and his cronies by sterilising the poor.

That's what this amounts to because only high income earners would be able to afford a third child under his crazy, crazy scheme.

Not since Hitler's Germany have I heard of such a bizarre approach to social policy.

If I didn't know better I would think this University of Western Australia associate professor had been nipping at the ether. Time for the Dean to have a quiet word with this gentleman.