Look at history, when societies get to the stage where the rich, beaurucrats, politicians and academics, have a massive share of the income of the state, society collapses. We are at that point.

The gaps grows and they do less and less bleeding the populance of advances that have been made in living standards.

Note how turnball got into parliament, is he honest, trustworthy and reliable, don't hold your breath. His agenda only relates to his own selfcentred desire for more power and money.

These fool won't accept how the bottom 70% of people struggle. Some one that is a veterans carer, works most of their time looking after the sick in their home. They receive virtually the same as an unemployed person, yet they save the government thousands a year.

A carer can work up to 20 hours a week outside of their caring duties, yet can only earn just over $60 per week. Do the maths on that. Once they earn over that amount, they lose 40cents in the dollar of their carer payment, a 40% tax. Then on their income they have to pay the relevant rate of tax, which in reality means that they pay up to 60% tax on their income. No deductions and all the costs of living

Now look at turnballs of the world, tax exemption after exception, $14 for a car and fuel. Income tax, fuel tax, GST, entertainment tax (alcohol) and many more taxes targeted at those on the lower income brackets of the poor, pays for everything he avoids paying for. His ilk, are going to receive huge payouts of more than 30 billion unfunded dollars, really good fiscal management.

Malcolm and his ilk take more and more from the people and give it to themselves and their friends. We know how much the little people have lost from buying telstra share years ago, more than 40% of their value has disappeared.

History also shows, that the turnballs,will suffer the same fate as their predecessors, stripped and run out of town. Lets hope it is soon

Where's Robin Hood when you need him ......Little has changed since the days of the Sheriff of Nottingham,increasing the burden on the poorest in the land for the benefit of the rich.
The current system is biased against those on the lowest incomes, The Entrepreneurs and Corporate Sector evaders have to be brought to account before there can be any real reform of the tax system.
Maracas

Some additional thoughts:

Malcolm's ironic concept is that it's cheaper to give the rich a tax cut than give the poor a tax cut.

In the article he talks in terms of x% cuts for the top/bottom y%. Of course, he could say a $x/week cut for those on $y/week. I can understand why this is not done for mathematical simplicity. Bonus for how the cuts for the 97% don't seem pathetic.

Rich people solve their problems by creating trusts and so on. What I get from Malcolm's article is that this has a minimal impact on the revenue base i.e. we loose 1 or 2 billion.

The main problem for the tax system is the EMTR for those about to loose welfare benefits. Lets be clear: this is a big, fundamental and structural problem; a drain on the whole economy and society.

I give Malcolm credit for recognising this as a problem, although he comes across as motivated to obtain a trade off -- give us at the top some cuts and we'll put a band-aid on the EMTR issue.

I've had an interest in the Negative Income Tax concept http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

David

Malcolm Turnbull makes some valid points about the wealthy keeping their assets in a company structure to minimise tax and the advantages of lowering the top tax rate, however lots of posters have pointed out the inequality aspect of Malcolm’s argument with the rich getting the breaks and the poor possibly losing the benefits.

Maybe a new tax on the rich would help balance out the cost of a lower marginal tax rate. Malcolm’s electorate is full of wealthy people, most of who live in expensive houses. Wealthy people buy expensive houses because the capital gains are tax free and the lifestyle is good. Some sort of annual levy on properties over $1m would provide some balance to Malcolm’s argument.

"Look at history, when societies get to the stage where the rich, beaurucrats, politicians and academics, have a massive share of the income of the state, society collapses"

Gee alchemist are you sure you didnt leave out insurance companies, banks, stockmarket speculators, multinationals?

Come on societies dont collapse under the weight of academics-they collapse because they choose a direction that doesnt foster the creative potential of each individual-including the creativity demonstrated by the entreprenre and inventor.

Look at fuel prices-are academics to blame or selfish speculation and market manipulation?

Malcolm,

It is a good start but again it is an accounting approach.
Tax reforms should not be only about brackets but should:

a) Be consistent with other economies competing to attract foreign investment (ie rethink the Capital Gains tax totally). If we claim Australia
b) Link business tax breaks to employment incentive or georgraphy (ie lower per employee tax or tax breaks to operate or employ of certain geographies). These assumptions should be factored in as ‘profit versus your gains. For example, how many jobs will the economy benefit from by sector to offset the $ 450 Million if, lets say, another 50,000 jobs were created.
c) Provide a BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer) Tax breaks for large corporates willing to invest in long-term infrastructure projects (Since state governments are too busy to think strategic).

Bottom line, tax reforms should be about taxation strategy that is tightly linked to the economy and its targets and performance.
Food for thoughts

Ash