Interesting article, in addition to ethical considerations, societies with relatively high measures of equality are usually more stable.

Kilmouski,

As a percentage of GDP, Australia is, and has been for years, one of the lowest taxing countries in the OECD. The myth that Australia has a high tax economy is promoted by our third rate business sector, the Coalition and its allies in the Murdoch media. Here's a comparison.

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REV

Jon J.

"if everyone's real wealth doubled tomorrow, so would inequality"

Eh? by which measure?

Nice response Jon J.

But calculate the proportion of all tax paid by an individual as a proportion of the individuals income ( say the median income) and one gets a view as to the effect of taxes on an individual - a different view. Why do you think that the tax minimizing industry flourishes? If taxes were " so low" then why does the cash economy flourish to the extent that it does?

Come off it mac.

When I bought my first house in the 60s, I was paying 7.25% tax on my $50 a week, [a little under average wage for the time], & only 3.5% interest on my home loan.

Of course unemployment benefits were so low, that welfare dependence had not become an alternate life style, so we were not supporting a cast of millions from our earnings.

Has been,

I'm old enough to remember the 1960s, different times, the country had an industrial base and 2% unemployment was regarded as high, people could easily find employment.

You might argue on technical or ideological grounds, that some taxes are inappropriate or counter productive, however, It's clear from the data that Australia doesn't have a high tax economy compared to most other OECD countries.

You regard welfare dependence as a "life style". I don't agree with middle class welfare such as government support for private schools, or completely cynical pork barrelling grants to first home buyers or baby bonuses and other popular, but hare-brained schemes that governments have inflicted on the taxpayers.

I find much of the article, less than cogent.
Look, put ten economist in the same room and you're almost guaranteed to evoke 30 different opinions?
The problem with our tax system is!
Too much of it is diverted into private pockets as compliance costs, and as such, increases the necessary tax burden by as much as 7%!
Without which the demand on the GNP could be as low as 17%?
We also have the problem of over-servicing/duplication/overlapping incredibly inefficient and entirely unnecessary administration costs, further compounded by cascading inputs, and even more so, by very powerful self interest, which all but compels them to defend it!
If we could reform or remove this factor, we would release up to 30% of consolidated revenue from admin costs and onto the coal face as services!
And the end of avoidance, would quite massively increase the total tax receipts, as well as quite massively reduce the tax burdens of honest tax payers.
As would quite massive simplification of the system and the removal of all the inefficient taxes, which currently, for all practical purposes, is all of the above, along with a forty thousand page tax act, with a virtual loophole on every page!?
All that's required, is a vastly simplified broad based, single, stand alone, unavoidable tax, free of this or that special interest exclusion, would not only collect more tax, but as a much smaller demand from the GNP.
Which would quite massively stimulate the non mining economy.
Even then, we can make a case for special tax zones, but only for a limited time, say a max of 10-15 years?
Enough time to create the necessary scales of economy, to have the growth, become a self sustaining snowball!
All that then remains, is to stop relying on population growth to stimulate, grow the economy, and instead, use the progressive and planned reduction of poverty, in all its forms and guises, to quite dramatically grow the domestic economy!
And, by far greater growth numbers, than would've been traditional in the past!
Rhrosty.

Mac don't forger that 2% unemployment in the 60s did not include aboriginal unemployment. They were not considered citizens back then. Add them into the figures, & they might not be too dissimilar.

As for getting work, there are turf farmers, equestrian people, dairy farms & produce growers around here always looking for workers. The local bludgers will put in an occasional day for cash in hand, but will not take a job.

My youngest daughter, a similar age to our feral single mother took 3 days to find a well paying job on the Gold Coast, on her recent return from Darwin, there everywhere.

You can hear some of the locals discussing whether to breed or work for a living.

Just out of interest, has it ever occurred that many of those high tax high welfare countries are the ones in most trouble with debt. Not too interest in comparing with oil rich states, but the Mediterranean states are now in desperate straits due to huge government welfare. It is a road we should avoid like the plague.