wre,
I agree with you on eliminating deductions, and your tax scales, except to say in my humble opinion the top rate should kick in at $100,000 p.a.

The solution to unemployment-lies in radical reform to tax and welfare, the real solution lies in calling a spade a spade, unemployment is misleading, the truth is we have a surplus workforce the magic figure to keep wages low is 6% surplus, lower wages rise, higher wages drop. calling people who have no job unemployed shifts the blame, it is those who create jobs that are to blame for the 6% surplus,

Surely the best way to tax reform is to devise a system that has something for everyone. I would propose:

1. Increase income and capital taxes to 100%. This would make the lefties estatic.

2. Make the tax system VOLUNTARY, by providing that any tax official who pestered any taxpayer about unpaid tax would be guilty of the crime of demanding money with menaces. The would make big business and the rich estatic.

3. Provide that if at the end of the day there was any deficiency in government finances, this would be paid for from the sale of politicians assets. This would make the mass of the prople estatic.

Bring it on!

Michael

Bags being a politician's wife if that happens: I bet I'd get rich overnight.

Flattening out the tax scale will only discriminate unfairly against lower and middle income earners. The tax system ought seek to redistribute wealth (within reason) rather than worsening already extreme class divisions. Bill Shorten's advocacy of a 'flat tax, meanwhile,which would provide a windfall to high income earners at the expense of average working Australians, is further evidence of the bankruptcy of elements of the ALP Right rather than that individual's supposed 'leadership credentials'. Wild tax cutting experiments that reduce government revenue as a proportion of GDP will, meanwhile, only further inflame the 'fiscal crisis of the state': which already sees public education and health care increasingly crisis-ridden and marginalised.

Cutting tax is not the answer. The BCA wants to see more investment in infrastructure. Public Private Partnerships are a boon to finance capital but provide poor value for money to the public. Meanwhile, putting the burden solely on wage earners and consumers is fundamentally unfair. Infrastructure needs to be paid for somehow. And comprehensive social services are essential to the 'good life' we all aspire to. None of this can be achieved without taxation.

Finally, complexity in the taxation system is necessary to maintain fairness and equity. A flat tax of 30% might be simple, but is it fair? It's time the bidding war on tax ended and tax reform in the interests of all Australians, funding universal services in health, education and aged care, sought to progressively increase the total tax take for the sake of the overall 'social good'.

Tristan