Gee the rich spend more then the poor ...Who would have thunk it.

Maybe we lost something in the edit but I didn't see anywhere a way to offset the additional cost to the poor for higher food prices?

Leave the GST alone and just come up with some measures that make everyone pay their Tax. How much Tax did Gina pay last year? How much Tax did Apple pay?

Why do Libs always go for the poor's purse?
Nannies for the rich and spam for the poor!

For conventional thinkers, there's no other choice than, reform the GST.
An act of the federal government created it, and made it a States' tax, which saw all State premiers and treasurers, circling like vultures, for their share of the carcass of genuine even handed fair play; which is what the GST, really represents!
And given an Federal act created it and made it a state's tax, another Federal act/repeal, could lever their corpse like, (cold dead hand) grip on it!
We should jettison the entire rotten scrambled eggs/dog's breakfast tax system, and then replace it with an unavoidable, single, stand alone, expenditure tax everybody pays, with no exclusions or excuses.
But, given none of the ideologues currently running the country, have the stomach for real reform; rather, just enough never ever hot air, to lift all of Canberra to great heights, we need to at least, change the GST!
It needs to be applied to all goods and services, inclusive of medicine!
Currently, it raises around 50 billion?
If it were applied to all goods and services. it would raise, 130-150 billions.
50 billion of which, should still go to the states, but as pro rata grants, rather than preferential govt largess!
The return of the grants commission, should allow the federal govt, to finally kill off, wasteful duplication! Nothing less!
Limited money could go far further, if it was provided as a direct funding model for autonomous Public Health and Education, distributed on a pro rata formula, amended and raised slightly, for every 100 klms you were from States' capitals? [And maybe some rapid rail?]
With the end of duplication and the application of direct funding, there'd be around 30% more actual money, available at the coal face!
Extending the GST to everything should also be accompanied by a literal doubling of the pension, which would only cost the budget bottom line, around 26-30 additional billion?
Meaning, no pensioner would be worse off, and the structural deficit, the current govt created during the Howard era, could finally be fixed!
Rhrosty.

Surely is time to scrap the tens of thousands of pages of taxation law and start again. It is rediculous that many PAYE employees need to turn to accountants to prepare their annual returns. Accountants once assisted small businesses to grow and prosper. Now they concentrate mainly on compliance issues.

We have had too many reviews that tinker around the edges of a complicated, and largely unfathomable set of laws. Put everything on the table, go through it with a fine toothed comb and come up with a system that is easy to understand for all.

Geoff, one of the flaws in the tax is that while businesses may pay the GST, they then claim it back, a process that costs plenty.

Perhaps we should look at not allowing businesses to claim back their tax.

Now of cause this will increase many prices, but, to combat this we could look at exemptions for low income earners, by way of a Centerlink administered refund arrangement. At least this would broaden the tax's base without applying the tax to food which would be most damaging to low income earners/families.

We may even be able to look at exeptioms for manufacturing, as this industry would suffer most from increasing prices.

An increase in GST by 5% will be skim of 5% from superannuation accounts through trillions of retirement savings spent into the future.

Having already paid income tax through their working lives to provide (amongst other things) for future non-self-funded pensioners, self-funded retirees must now be forced to help meet a shortfall in that area.

For many on lower incomes the tax benefit of super saving was non-existent as their tax rate was the same whether money went directly into their pockets or into super.

Labor tried to square this up with a limitation to the tax break superannuation saving provided the wealthiest and it will be interesting to see what Hockey, who howled the loudest over this, now proposes.

Geoff, you are not addressing the underlying problem of why we have so much debt and need more and more tax to pay it off.

We have a $1.5 trillion economy and have an average of 3% growth + 3% inflation. This means that our money supply grows by $90 billion pa or over $16,000 for every household in Aust. We used to have 4 State Govt banks and the Commonwealth that could create some of this money debt free as infrastructure but now must borrow nearly all our money from OS private central banks,thus the more growth we have, the more debt we incur,unless we sell off all our assets.

Geoff you are not addressing the fundamental problem of monetary sovereignty and we longer have it. Thus we are debt slaves and you see the solution as raising more tax?

How do we solve a debt problem with tax, when growth + inflation is expressed as debt by our OS financial masters?

Paul Keating once noted that broadening the tax base meant the many pay more so that the few can pay less. That's not ideology, it's arithmetic. This was borne out soon afterwards when the Liberals imposed a GST on the overwhelming bulk of what everyone spent on daily living while at the same time reducing company tax by 16.6%. Mr Greed has been seeking ever since to make the many pay even more still as the few pay less. Naturally the few don't express it honestly as Mr Keating did but they bury the grab in a whole lot of mealy-mouthed stuff about making the tax system simpler and collecting more revenue.

OK, here's a way to make it simpler. First, abolish the GST, what Tony Abbott would (had he been more honest) have condemned as a "Great Big Tax". Second, restore wholesale sales taxes scaled to address social goals to the direct benefit of the many. Third, load income tax rates to distinguish "personal exertion" and "unearned" income", where personal exertion means personal, hands-on creation of goods and services and "unearned" means earned, but not by the taxpayer.

Sparkyq has it right, tweak it here tweak it there, make it more complicated, more accountants needed, more tax specialists, more tax lawyers ... nothing much really changes.

The tax act is thousands of pages long. Complication simply allows the unscruplous a hole to hide behind. Scrap income tax, tax land and maybe capital and consumption. The baby, bathwater and bath need to be thrown out.