Squeers,

Sounds like you have reaped bitter fruit from these farmers and are suffering from sour grapes.

Last time I checked the communist regimes were collapsing.

rehctub: "Why not look in to just what these men provided for their communities before you reply. How many jobs did they create collectively for starters?"

These men are dead. They took their rewards while they were alive. They built big houses in the best suburbs, eat at the best restaurants, took overseas holidays and had small armies at their beck and call. Good luck to them - I can't see too many begrudging what they got. As you say, they almost certainly worked hard for it.

The people we are talking about now are their kids. Their daddies gave them a fantastic life style, sent them to the best schools, took them into their companies and groomed them for success. If they can't take over their daddies life with that sort of start, then they should leave it do those who do have what it takes. Passing on the power and privilege because "their daddies deserve it" isn't a good reason.

I believe a threshold of one million dollars for each child should apply, and the same for a surviving spouse, but the fifty percent that used to apply should be applied after that. Before 1972, an ordinary working man, was allowed a tax free threshold that enabled him to support a wife and children, without his wife having to go out to work, unless she wanted to. Most mothers stayed home until their kids went to school and then worked to pay off their mortgage faster or save for luxuries that they could otherwise not afford.

When a certain lawyer got elected in 1972 he raised wages almost double in twelve months, but he did not raise the tax free threshold, so millions of workers were inflated into higher tax brackets, and millions of mothers have had no choice but to go back to work. I know how much ordinary workers paid in Income Tax in 1972, because I had twenty people working for me at the time. They earned better than the average wage, and for a year, between them only paid $12 each in income tax. Their annual salary was about $2,000 or forty dollars a week in 1972. The tax free threshold was about $1400 of that or about two thirds of average weekly earnings.

When death duties were abolished the tax required to fund government has fallen on the ordinary worker, and if it was reintroduced, a tax free threshold, of at least $600 a week could be introduced, reducing the push for higher wages.

It is all very well to say that there be no death duties or gift taxes that had to go with it to make it work. But government needs money for defence and other purposes, and if we don’t want to be governed by some other system then we are liable to pay taxes. The income tax base had to expand during World War II to fund the war, but now we are at peace it should contract again for ordinary working people. Money is property and should be justly levied

Shadow Minister (let’s hope you never get into power)
Unfortunately, as you demonstrate these pages are too often used for asinine knee jerk reactions, rather than “thoughtful” commentary. Anything that has the least whiff of socialism gets lambasted via clichéd allusion to historical precedent, rather than the merit of the “idea”—which has never been properly put into practice. I’m talking about “democratic socialism”, already working wonders in its approximate forms in Scandinavia. History has amply demonstrated our specie’s propensity for corruption and megalomania, so autocracy or oligarchy in any form cannot be trusted. Popular democracy, however, is almost as bad; the “people”, when they’re not utterly self-seeking en masse, or apathetic, or plain ignorant, are just as prone to corruption as the individual cum dictator. My critique of our current system, beyond its rapaciousness and utter incompetence, is based on the simple question: why should a rich kid, or old person, or anyone else with money, get a transcendentally more privileged education, or health care, or general leg-up than the poor demographic?
Try to think this through outside your prejudice.
In my view the likes of Packer Junior should be given a hundred grand at the most and be told that they’re lucky bastards!
And I don’t have, nor do I have any reason to have, sour grapes.
Cannot you see that you’re just a mouthpiece for the status quo, an unthinking drone, and that the current system is unsustainable as well as obscene?

Ah, the old "envy of the rich" human foible, keeps bugging many
Australians, as they rush off to buy lotto tickets, to become
rich themselves.

Personally I have no problem with those who have lots of money,
hey, if it gives them lots of thrills, so be it, its not what
my own life is all about.

The rich spend alot of money and create alot of jobs. Personally
I'd rather see Australian assets owned by Australians, then
by the rich from Tokyo, Shanghai or New York.

Last time I checked, there were in fact not many seriously
rich people in Australia at all. China and India have more more
billionaires then we do.

Tax the rich blindly and they have the choice to move their
affairs elsewhere, you will thus land up with nothing, so I don't
see the point.

Best we have more rich people paying some tax, rather then
no rich people at all, just to help some cope with their envy.

Squeers, history will show that while one generation may emass a fortune, another will no doubt loose it. So in essence, what you are saying should happen, already happens only the fortune often goes into the hands of another smart business person. And thank god for that as if it went to the government, as you want, they will most certainly piss it away.

What you also fail to relaise is the number of jobs that the rich create, along with the amount of community support they provide.

Do you think the likes of Gerry Harvey would provide the community support he does if he knew his assetts would be handed back to the crown when he's gone so they could decide how best to waste it.

Now on the other hand, if we had governments that would stop handing out money in the form of welfare and provide for the needs of kids instead, then attitudes may well change. But until then I feel all business people will begrudge handing money to governments (both sides) so they can continue to finance the wastefull lifestyles of many within our community.