Australians’ 2022 views on taxation – and on taxation “reform” – are “informed” by a confusing array of truths, lies, twaddle, insight, credulity, chicanery, chutzpah, self-interested opportunism (sometimes naked, sometimes disguised) , rank hypocrisy, timidity, virtue-signalling, obfuscation, indifference, compassion, cruelty, ignorance, knowledge, and honest uncertainty.
The featured image is (Jon) Kudlelka’s cartoon for the 08 October 2022 edition of The Saturday Paper
Fact/factoid: the average earning of a fulltime worker in Australia is $92,000.
As economist Dr Richard Denniss notes:
that average is skewed upwards by CEOs like Macquarie Bank’s Shemara Wikramanayake, who takes home $14.6m a year.
Denniss is executive director of The Australia Institute.
In the 06 October 2022 Australian edition of The Guardian, he deplores the Murdoch media’s portrayal of those who earn $120,000 to $160,000 per annum as “middle Australians”.
That claim is a lie, even in terms of the average income of a fully-employed Australian.
It is an even more outrageous falsehood when one considers the median Australian income – i.e. where an equal number of individual incomes are higher or lower than it is.
Last year, the median figure was $62,686.
The headline atop Dennis’s essay: Jim Chalmers has a unique chance to remake Australia – or to squander $243 bn on the rich.
Two key paragraphs:
There is just no evidence to support the argument that giving tax cuts to people earning over $180,000 per year so that they can spend more money on Uber eats, or bidding up the price of inner-city housing, will deliver greater economic benefits than investing that same money into infrastructure and public services.
There is, however, strong evidence that investing money into services like early childhood education will deliver much stronger economic returns than spending on tax cuts.
Click here to read the full essay.
Nearly three decades ago English songster Robb Johnson authored a “topical” song.
His More Than Enough is perhaps even more “timely” in 2022 than it was in 1993.
This year Martin Simpson delivered the finest version I have heard.
This performance is also a fond salute to Martin Simpson’s late father-in-law, Roy Bailey.