We can simplify taxation and welfare with reality and balance the budget problem . The following principles illustrate how:-

1.GST taxes the most those who have most income to spend. If it is not levied on food , rent, medical, education, and home loan interest it is NOT regressive.

2. Income tax should be levied on income left after the real costs of earning it.
Therefore, reasonable cost of getting to work should be deductible, along with cost of day care for children.

No subsidies for day care as deductibility should be enough and if it is not enough one parent should stay home.

3. A family unit should be defined as a group involving a couple who have registered as obligated to support one or more dependants.

That unit should be taxed as a unit at normal rates on combined income divided by 2 after deduction of a fixed amount per dependant and a fixed amount per child for children sent to non- government schools.

4. Rebates, as distinct from deductions should be abolished as complications resulting from the politics of envy.

5. THEN we should be able to adjust tax rates to ensure a balanced budget and avoid the huge accountancy and public service costs of "churn" i.e. administering rules to get money in only to pay it out, in day care, private school subsidies, and general gimmickry we see now. The savings should be enormous and we can still have an adequate welfare net.

Unemployment benefits can be maintained but coupled with an obligation to move to get employment where it is available with assistance on the moving costs.

We should not have fruit picked by labour imported from the Islands while people complain they cannot get a job.

Job applications should be videoed and the videos stored at Centrelink. A person who interviewed for a waiter's job with a ring in the and purple tufts of hair should learn to eat at a soup kitchen.

It all amounts to lining up our taxation system and welfare net with
reality.

Another thing to contemplate is productivity (efficiency) and substitution.

Governments bang on about raising productivity somehow forgetting that once you reach the top end it cannot continue. There are laws why efficiency cannot exceed 100%.

Likewise as you bring in substitution you automatically introduce lower quality into the equation, particularly when discussing resources like iron ore, coal, lithium etc, we always pick the best or low hanging fruit first, in our case these have already been exploited in the main.

Taxation is but one tool, unfortunately we are pushing against limits we have no control over, this guarantees the debt trap and the inevitable long-term decline in living standards.

We are all having the wrong argument or discussion, but as we all know, unpopular issues seldom get the mature discussion that is clearly needed.

Of course they can't. Slime ball Turnbull just wants some more money to buy votes from the stupid,

Hi doog & company!

Hi Bren

Whatever was said in the political bunfights of the 2000s, the actual agreement between the states and the Commonwealth makes no mention of land tax and refers only to some stamp duties:

https://www.coag.gov.au/node/75

Rhian

I agree this time

A parcel of money is goods, including by definition.
Armoured trucks take goods to banks, don't they?

Online transfer of money involves GST, or soon will.

A parcel of money leaving a country where GST applies and arriving in a country where that money is serviced in investment, surely should be subject to GST.

How much money have Australian politicians sent to the Cayman Islands tax haven for investment?
Should be some GST revenue out of that. LOL